Twice
by Ianuaria
Summary: Post Jen Harmon's death in An Honest Mistake. What if no one could get Derek out of the woods - except someone who knows him well enough to get to the root of his pain? Addek endgame, plenty of backstory, angsty and painful but ultimately worth it. NOT MERDER.
1. Chapter 1

**_Results of a long rainy weekend. Set post Jen Harmon's death in_** ** _An Honest Mistake, when Derek goes into drunk caveman mode and smacks Meredith's ring into the night._**

 ** _In my reimagining, Richard calls Addison, and the past catches up to them._**

 ** _The title is from the song of the same name that plays while Derekand Addison talk to Jen's husband, by Little Dragon. If you have it, play it while you read. Or go listen to it later._**

 ** _Read on!_**

* * *

 ** _.._**

 ** _Twice I turn my back on you_**

 ** _I fell flat on my face but didn't lose_**

 ** _Tell me where would I go_**

 ** _Tell me what led you on I'd love to know._**

 ** _.._**

* * *

The call came at midnight, which is so cliché she might have laughed if her heart hadn't been in her throat, choking her words and stealing her breath.

They're circling now, lower, lower, closer to the place she left herself behind. She promised herself she wouldn't come back; she's worked hard for this life. To lose it over something as inconsequential as a man who doesn't love her is...well, it isn't what she planned.

 _Don't look back_ she whispered to herself the last time she walked through this airport. Not because she wouldn't be able to walk away - because she was sure he wouldn't be watching her, and she wasn't sure she could take this last, final rejection.

 _Don't look back._

She hasn't. LA is beautiful, wonderful, healing. She's made friends, a life, she's reaffirmed her faith in her skills. She's happy.

But happy is subjective. There's the kind of happy that lets you fall asleep at night alone without half a bottle of whatever's nearest, and there's the kind of happy that leaves you feather-light, shiny bright. The kind of happy that Derek used to make her.

The kind of happy she used to make him.

 _Used to._

The last time she saw him before she left...in her office. Yes, that's it. She was packing, the drawers gaping empty and open, the walls stripped bare, boxes sealed at her feet. All tat was left on her desk was the embossed nameplate she'd had for years. Eleven years, to be precise.

She wasn't taking it with her - not much use for the damn thing, seeing as it had _Addison Shepherd_ on it in shining gold. It sat there and stared at her, a memento of the forever she thought she'd found.

He poked his head around the door, hair missed, scrubs rumpled, cap in hand. His eyes were wide, disbelieving.

"You're really leaving." he observed.

"I start at the practice tomorrow," she replied, dusting off her hands, straightening her skirt, tugging at her coat. It was ridiculous how uncomfortable she felt with his eyes piercing her. "Nae wants me there early."

She still has no idea what she was hoping for.

 _Don't go, Addison._

 _I love you, Addie._

 _I'm sorry._

She's not sure what she would have done if he'd actually said any one of those things, so maybe it's better that he smiled and said _safe trip._

She left that nameplate in the wicker wastebasket, faceup. Forever doesn't apply when your whole life is over.

She put him in a box, taped him in, flung it into the darkest recesses of her mind, and became a different person. A person who knows how to sleep alone, who doesn't believe in forever and in happy endings and in perfect families.

When she saw him last week, when he saved Archer's life, he slipped out of that box for a moment, and she clung to him. The old Derek. _Her_ Derek.

And then the surgery and the OR, _put it down, Addison_ and instantly she was back where their ending began.

And again, she turned her back on him.

So when that phone call came, she almost didn't pick it up. Almost.

 _He needs you_ Richard said. It felt so good, being needed, if not wanted. She takes what she can get. She can build walls a hundred feet high, move thousands of miles away, bury her memories a million feet deep but she will always, _always_ come for him.

Even if he doesn't want her. Which, she worries as she ducks into the cab, her single lonely suitcase rattling in the trunk, may well be the case.

The roads are familiar, rain-slick, lights slithering across them. She closes her eyes, head leaning against the chill window. She'll just sent if he's all right. And then she'll leave, back to her sunny world.

Of course he's all right. _She's_ the one who was never all right, after. He was the one who believed in the glass half full. She was the one who thought, incessantly, of how many ways there were to spill that glass.

"Right here." she tells the driver, fumbling with bills in the dark as he hauls her bag to the ground.

" _Here_?" he questions, looking her up and down. Admittedly, her heels aren't exactly suited to the soft ground.

"Here." she confirms, and she stands rooted to the spot as he drives away, his headlights fading until she's in pitch blackness broken only by a short string of lights.

She put those there. Thought they'd give the grim little trailer a bit of joy. He must have forgotten that, or he'd have torn them down long ago.

They wink cheerfully at her, lighting up the front of the trailer, a slouched form beneath them.

"I swear I haven't had that much to drink," he says, raising an eyebrow with surprising coordination, considering how drunk he clearly is. "But I think I'm hallucinating."

"You wish you were." she replies, falling I to a chair beside him. Her heels are irreparably ruined now. One more thing this man owes her. "But you're not. And you are drunk."

"Yup." he agrees. "I'm drunk."

"You stink."

" _You_ stink." he says idly. "Go away."

"I flew a thousand miles to see you, that's all you can say?"

He widens his eyes at her, flapping his arms. "You saw me. Now go."

She winces at the bloodshot whites of his eyes. "And let you die of liver failure?"

"Who called you anyway?" he glares balefully.

"Richard." she mutters at the same time he says it. They look at each other for a startled moment, slipping into a rhythm so old they could dance it in their sleep.

"I don't need you to fix me." he declares, popping open another beer. "Want one?"

"No."

"Suit yourself." he shrugs, settling back.

"No, you idiot, I mean no I'm not leaving." she says impatiently, grabbing his arm. "Up."

"Leggo," he jerks away. "It's all your fault anyway."

"What?" she spits.

"You didn't let me save her." he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You wanted to save the baby, and you didn't let me save her."

"She was dead already and you know it." she says furiously, standing up. They're not married anymore, she doesn't have to take his bull. Richard can just fix his precious surgeon himself. Or maybe Grey can.

"You saved the baby," he says, seemingly unaware of her anger. "You saved _their_ daughter. You save babies, Addie, don't you, just not..."

"I swear, Derek, finish that sentence and I will kill you." she whispers, the air suddenly too thick to breathe, beer and sweat and rain heavy in her nostrils. It's back, that suffocating pressure, she fights it, but it pushes back, enveloping her in its grip.

 _Not here_ she pleads, even though he's the only one who knows. _Not now._

"Go ahead." he smiles pleasantly, swigging his beer, watching her struggle.

"Bastard." she manages as she straightens up, taking deeper breaths, regaining control.

"Bitch." he says casually. "Leave me alone, come on."

"I'm here for Richard," she says, as much to herself as to him. "I'm not leaving."

"I proposed to Meredith." he says, watching her carefully. "Well. I was going to, anyway."

 _Is that all you got_ she laughs silently. Looking at him now, a sad sorry sodden mess, she feels bad for Meredith rather than for herself.

She can have him.

"What happened?" she jeers; they used to bring out the best in each other, and then it turned into the worst. "She realised you're just an egotistical jackass?"

"Something like that, yeah." he says morosely. "Also I hit a home run with the ring, so...yeah."

Her eyes fall on the baseball bat leaning against the door. She knows that bat. She's watched countless games being played with it at picnics, reunions, birthday parties, too big for the littler Shepherds.

"Nice." she snorts. "Your standards have clearly fallen."

"No." he says, still watching her. Baiting her. "It was my mother's ring. For the right girl. I'd say my standards have risen."

And _that_ , she thinks as he slumps back in his chair, snoring, is why she needs to turn her back again.

* * *

 ** _Okay, so did you like it? Hate it? Have questions?_**

 ** _Leave me a review to let me know!_**

 ** _I know it's pretty brutal right now, but it'll be explained. I'm toying with the idea of actual flashbacks versus the backstory being told as a memory, so let me know what you'd like._**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Oh. My. God. You people are AMAZING. Thank you for your lovely feedback on the first chapter...here's another one!_**

 ** _It's short and a lot confusing, but the reveal is slow, or it wouldn't be any fun._**

 ** _I've decided against flashbacks, because it might turn out to be a lot like another popular Addek story(yall know the one) , and I'm going with more of an introspective thing. Which is wildly experimental and fun to write, sooo...here goes._**

* * *

There's an intimacy to hatred, she observes; that constant attention to the other person, what hurts them, what gets to them. Constantly searching for new ways to wound, carefully honing words, aiming gestures.

He's silent now, faint sounds of his breathing reaching her ears.

It's deafeningly quiet here; she can just about hear the water, lapping at the shore, the faint hum of crickets, the rustle of trees in the slight breeze, and she's seized by a sudden, vast emptiness the likes of which she hasn't felt in years.

She used to turn to Derek in those days, constantly thirsty for attention, love, anything to fill the gaping void. Now, well, she's pretty much on her own.

"Do you think about it."

It's not really a question, more a statement, but she answers anyway because it's the first thing he's said in hours. No need to ask what he's talking about.

"All the time." she says honestly. Her voice cracks a little and she reaches for his beer to moisten her throat. "All the time."

"This," he says, recapturing the bottle, his fingers brushing against hers. "Feels the same way."

She feels the rage burn hot and fast through what's left of her patience. How dare he, how can even _think_ that this is anything like what they went through - not that they went through it together -but he has absolutely no right.

It was _their_ tragedy. _Their_ pain, _their_ nightmare.

She's not about to let him take it and twist it against her.

"It's not the same." she whispers fiercely. "Derek-"

"What would you know." he laughs, a short, ugly sound. "It's your fault this time too."

 _He's drunk_ she reminds herself. He's angry. Hurt.

The thing is, so is she.

"Tell me, Addison," he leers. "Did it make you feel good? _Great?_ Walking over me in my OR, was it enough for you, was it finally enough?"

* * *

He feels reckless, careening towards what he knows is a bad ending, but he can't seem to stop himself.

The years of pent-up rage, resentment, guilt, anger, no matter how undeserved...it comes bubbling up out of him, spilling hot and bitter from his mouth and oh, does it feel _good_ , to watch her hurt.

She's sitting there in front of him, bold as anything, that new short haircut he's not sure he likes exposing her neck, her shoulders, making her look so much more vulnerable than she really is. Because she's not vulnerable, oh no.

She's tough and she's strong and she's stubborn. She always knows exactly what she's doing. What she's doing to him.

They've spent their entire surgical careers together. Except for those years they don't talk about...all of it has been together.

They learned together and won together; they lost and they stumbled and blundered and succeeded and got better and then became the best - and for all of it, they were equals.

Always neck and neck. Always at each others throats, though back them the was a friendly edge to it. Nothing like now, with a taste for blood and a desire to hurt.

 _The ones to watch._

That was them. DerekandAddison. They were the ones who were always watched, and didn't they know it.

She thrives on it, though, on being the best. Unbeatable, unstoppable, top of her game; she saves lives, yes, but he knows a large part of her ultracompetitive nature is the hunger to be seen. To be significant. To be too good to be ignored.

He wants it too, but for different reasons, reasons best explained by the seven year old boy he left hiding behind a jewelry case, watching his father get shot. He knew he wanted to be a neurosurgeon. Aimed for it.

Addison? She chose specialty after specialty, upping the ante until she was the best of the best and there was no one left to tell her she wasn't good enough.

Rising meteorically, shooting up, the name and the reputation and the responsibility that came with it, they gloried in it. Thirsted for it. Chased it relentlessly even when it sent them spinning in directions opposite to each other.

But never, once, have they not been each others equals.

In that OR, the frantic beats of the fetal monitor in their ears, Jen's blood on his hands - so much blood, on the floor, at his feet, on his gown. Blood everywhere except where it was supposed to be - so many eyes on him, he was the weaker one. The failure, the burn-out, the one who couldn't take the heat.

He hated it.

And she knew it.

Those eyes, so blue above her mask, boring into him. He's seen those eyes illuminated in the sterile glow of the OR so many times. Holding retractors for hours on end, suctioning, then assisting, then flying solo, alight with achievement.

That day, they were blank. Nothing. Like he wasn't worth it.

She's always been the one with the instincts. She has a feel for it, she was born to it. If she has an insecurity, it's her emotions. She tangles herself in every case, every patient, investing until she's exhausted and there's nothing left to give.

He looks at her, sitting depleted and subdued in front of him. Maybe she's given too much.

Him? He's the one who needs time to think, to deliberate. If he has a flaw, it's his ego. He refuses to believe his mistakes, it takes him a while to acknowledge that someone else is right and he's wrong.

Maybe he took too much this time.

"No." she says softly. "I never meant to hurt you, Derek."

She's looking away as she says it, out over the dark grass beaded with rain, sparkling in the string of lights above their heads. He remembers, with sudden clarity, that she put them there one night, _to scare away the bears_ she said but really she was just decorating for Christmas. Their last Christmas.

What was it he said to her? Something about wanting to be with the ones you love.

The one he loved wasn't there. The one she loved wasn't there. They both wanted the same thing, and yet it drove them apart.

"I never wanted to hurt you." she says again, louder this time, directly at him. And he knows she isn't talking about the surgery.

But she could be talking about a million other times. She's been his friend and his lover and his wife, she's known him better than anyone...and maybe that's why she can destroy him so easily. She's too close.

"Well, you did." he replies. They both know he isn't talking about the surgery.

"And I'm sorry," she continues, her voice light. Like this is a perfectly normal conversation to be having with ones ex-husband at three in the morning.

"You've said that before."

"I know." she says, her voice flat with despair. "But you wouldn't listen."

* * *

It's true, she's said sorry. So many times.

Sobbed it, screamed it, offered it like an olive branch, hurled it like a grenade.

It's never enough to heal the wounds she left on him.

But he's never apologised. He doesn't even know she bled like he did, hurt like he did.

She used to think he was the person who knew her best... so what does that say about their relationship?

Did he really believe her every time she said _I'm fine_?

If he didn't, why didn't he ask her what went wrong?

If he did, he never really knew her at all.

"So it's my fault," he cocks his head. "It's always my fault. Right?"

"Don't be-"

"What?" his eyes glitter dangerously. "What, Addison?"

It wasn't his fault, in the end. It wasn't hers. They'll never admit it because that would mean there's no one to blame.

"You're drunk." she says, playing it safe.

"And honest."

"And honest." she agrees.

"Talk to me." he says suddenly. "Anything. Take my mind off this, please," he begs, his eyes suddenly naked and vulnerable. "I can't think about this anymore."

She's stunned by his swing in mood, but she plays along.

"I have a cat. Milo."

"Is it alive?"

She feels a slight twinge, but she presses on.

"I live on the beach."

In a home he will never see, with people he will never meet.

"You?" he questions. "You?"

"It's nice." she says, almost smiling.

"I'll take your word for it." he snorts, reaching for the cooler and seeming to think better of it. "Tell me about...work. The last case you worked on."

 _Could you have asked a worse question ?_

* * *

 _ **Please review and let me know if you like it!**_


	3. Chapter 3

**_This chapter may be slightly sad. I'm warning you. I was studying and my brain was dying so I wrote this and it may ... reflect my mood._**

* * *

When he wakes up, he's in bed. He's not sure how he got there but he's pretty sure it wasn't by himself. He doesn't have his shoes on, and he's mostly undressed, a fact he realises as he feels the duvet shift over bare skin. There's a glass of water next to the bed, two pills, and a bucket on the floor.

Addison.

They were twenty-two when they met. Well, he was twenty-two. She was twenty-one. So young. She's a surprisingly steady drunk, has fleeting hangovers and seems to function as well on no sleep as she does with it. He...well, he has miserable hangovers and Richard wouldn't want him in his hospital right now.

They've nursed each other through countless hangovers. The stomach flu. That one time Addison thought she had pneumonia. When he broke his ankle skiing. The time she sprained her wrist and refused to move for a week for fear of damaging the delicate tendons. They know, instinct by now, what the other will need.

He moves the bucket as he sits up, the faint scrape of plastic on linoleum enough to make him wince.

There's a lightweight coat draped over the back of the couch - he remembers her diatribe on the lack of a coat tree in the trailer, so long ago now - and an unfamiliar silver phone on the table, but no sign of her.

She isn't outside either, although he wasn't really expecting her to be. His heart speeds up a little; she isn't in the trailer, isn't outside. He notices his boots are missing, and feels a smile creep over his cracked lips.

There's a crunching sound behind him, and he turns to see her picking her way out of the woods, clad in an old sweater of his and his muddy boots.

"Now that," he observes. "Isn't something I thought I'd get to see."

She gives him a half-smile, concentrating on finding the least marshy path back to dry ground.

"How far did you go?" he asks curiously. When she lived here, he'd made several - admittedly halfhearted - attempts to get her to explore the land with him.

 _It's not like you want me here anyway_ , she'd said. She said it like a question, a test; he's sure he failed miserably.

"Just ...here." she says. Which means she has no idea. She was wandering around the woods in the predawn light...alone.

"You shouldn't have gone out there." he says stiffly. He isn't used to this anymore, this...concern.

"I didn't see a no trespassing sign." she raises an eyebrow, the arch a familiar accusation. "Sorry."

"It's not...safe, okay?" he snaps, irritated. Why does she always have to have an answer, a comeback, a retort? "Bears. And poison ivy." He smirks at the last word, pleased to see a flush spreading over her cheekbones.

She's thinner, somehow smaller in his sweater, drooping off her shoulders. He can see her clavicles in sharp relief against her skin, an unfamiliar shade of soft gold, and her cheekbones slash sharply across her face. He feels an unwelcome surge of protectiveness, fighting it down as he watches her step out of the boots, shaking out her hair, scowling as a few twigs fall out.

"I stole your sweater too." she says. "And your boots. Feel free to call the cops."

"I just didn't want you to-"

"Get eaten by a bear?" she snaps. "Wouldn't that be fitting. Visits ex-husband, gets eaten by a bear. I can see the headlines now."

"Addison-"

"Aren't you hungover?" she asks. "So be quiet." She's facing away from him, but he hears the faint tremble in her voice, sees the stiffening of her posture that was once as familiar to him as his own moods.

* * *

It's cold in the trailer too, smelling faintly of alcohol and that unidentifiable Derek scent, the one she's missed so much she felt like an actual, physical ache in her chest. But that was ages ago and this is now and they're divorced and she can't let these memories out of this box because then she'll be drowning in them again...and she's not sure she has the strength to swim.

She reaches for her blouse, folded neatly on the couch. She slept in his sweater last night, the wool scratchy against bare skin, the couch punishing against her sore muscles. It smelled like him, and it draped comfortingly around her. It's dark blue, thick knit wool, the sleeves dropping below her hands. His mother made it for him, on Christmas, when they were in their third year at Columbia. That was the only year they haven't gone to the Shepherds for Christmas, before and since they got married.

They were slammed that year, and spent Christmas dashing between the the hospital and the library and their dorm rooms, studying every free hour - but they found time to set up a tiny tree. It was in his room, she spent half her time there anyway, and when she showed up one morning with cups of coffee and an armload of textbooks he was grinning up at her from the floor, putting the last touches on that tree.

She got a sweater too, that year. Hers was red, and she thought it clashed with her hair but he said he loved the color on her. And then she ended up not wearing it instead, and there were pine needles in her hair. It was cold - the dorm was always cold - and he slipped his sweater over her head even though his arms were warm enough. It smelled like pine from the needles scattered under their warm bodies, peppermint and cinnamon and Derek.

She wore that sweater before and during and after the thing they don't speak about. Before, because it fit perfectly over her belly that he loved to tease her about. During, on the nights he spent at the hospital and she went home, trading places so they could sleep. After...after, she wore it because it was a piece of him and if she couldn't have him, she needed it for comfort.

She fiddles with a hole near the hem before she pulls it over her head; she can feel his eyes on her. Maybe he's remembering too.

Still, she turns away before she pulls it off, and when she turns around, still buttoning her blouse, his eyes are averted.

She looks so damn good in that sweater. He shouldn't think about it, but he does. In that moment, it could be sixteen years ago, that cold winter morning, tangled beneath their tree. It could be seven years ago, her belly gently rounded beneath the worn wool, it could be four years ago,coming home to her sleeping on the animal-print rug, tear damp. Time runs together in her ocean eyes, blurring in his mind until she looks away.

He doesn't register what she's doing until she's frowning at her phone, tossing it into her purse.

"You're leaving."

"You could sound happier." she says wryly. "You're alive and...sober. My work is done."

He should feel relieved. He should be happy. He can't look at her without seeing her staring at him in the OR. He can't look at her without seeing her with Mark, he can't look at her without seeing her signing the papers. In Seattle, in the hospital in Boston.

She holds out her hand to him and he responds automatically, palm outstretched. The ring. Her fingers open around it, dropping it into his hand. The stone is dull in the dim light, slightly askew in its setting.

"You might want to get that fixed." she says regretfully. "Clubbing it with a baseball bat probably wasn't wise."

He prods the stone gently,feeling itI've in its prongs. He remembers his mother's face the night she gave it to him, on a cold bench outside the hospital.

 _Addie wasn't right, clearly_.

She never liked Addison. She tolerated her, yes, maybe even loved her, but only because he did. She used to say it to them when they were kids; _I always love you, but I don't always have to like you._

It was usually followed by being grounded. In this case, Addison ended up wothout a family. Because his family _was_ her family, even before they were married. She knows when all his sisters birthdays are, and when their husbands birthdays are, and when their kids birthdays are. She's been in charge of Christmas presents since they got engaged. She's the one who keeps track of reunions and weddings and graduations and makes sure they get there on time.

And in a moment, it was all gone. For a second, he lets himself acknowledge that he wasn't the only one who lost someone in their divorce. He lost a brother and a lover; she lost the only people she had to call family.

"Wait."

* * *

His voice rings out as she closes the door behind her. She doesn't know what she expected. They're divorced. She didn't think he would thank her for coming, or for helping. She certainly didn't expect this.

"See Richard, before you go." he blurts. "He misses you, and Mark. And Callie, and - you didn't really say goodbye, before you left, so-"

"Derek." she says kindly. "It's okay. You don't have to feel guilty, or whatever. Seattle is yours, not mine."

"But _they're_ yours." he insists. "Richard still has your spot open. Mark misses you, I know it. And Callie and Bailey probably blame me for running you off."

 _Seattle. I want Seattle, and never to see you again._

He hurled those words at her like a gale- force wind. Later, she pinned Mark to the stark white bed in her - or was it his - hotel room and kissed him hard enough to bruise, made him make her forget. Richard hugged her the day she left, promised her a job when she came running back like he predicted she would. Callie is moving on, becoming the person she knew she was, Bailey is moving on to bigger and better things. Seattle has changed, and she's not sure she fits anymore. If she ever fit in the first place.

When they divorced, they split cleanly down the middle. She got her trust fund and the Hamptons house and the brownstone and everything in it except for the few items he requested - his books and diplomas and certificates. His father's picture that sat in the den. He kept the land in Seattle, and she assumed that these people came with it, because she got Sam and Naomi.

The memories, though, they couldn't split those. They're still fresh, raw wounds. They don't heal. They will always, inexorably, be linked by tragedy.

"I'll drive." he says, half a smile quirking his lips, and she smiles in response. He always drives, just like she always makes the reservations. They had a rhythm, moving in perfect synchronisation, never missing a beat.

* * *

She's mostly quiet in the car, commenting once or twice on familiar sights. On the ferry, she stands a little further from him than she always has, and his eyes fixate on her bare hand clutching the railing. The ring she handed him is heavy in his pocket, weighted with history.

They met across a crowded dance hall, his parents. One look across the room, and that was that. They were married a year later; Liz followed nine months after.

 _When you know, you know_.

His father said that to him once, his arm around his wife's shoulder, one hand holding him on his lap. That was the line running through his head twenty-odd years later in a dissection hall stinking of formalin and cold flesh, scalpel glinting in his hand, when he saw her for the first time. He knew, then, that this was it.

Meredith, in the bar. He didn't...know, exactly, what it was. Maybe he was ...not drunk, but comfortably buzzed. He was hurt, throbbing with the betrayal he'd walked in on. He wanted to hurt back, the way he been hurt.

Such a base instinct, revenge. And yet it felt so good, looking her in the eye as she sashayed back into his life, heels like weapons and a smirk like a taunt; _we're_ _even now._

He sees her draw her coat tighter around her body, tucking her chin against her chest. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, blowing away from her face, and she looks, for lack of a better word, adrift.

She used to get like this a lot. After. Before she left. Disappearing for hours at a time into her own thoughts, as unreachable as if she had physically left the room. He wonders when he stopped trying to bring her back.

"Last night," he says. "You wouldn't tell me what was going on, at work."

He watches her carefully, aware he has no right to be asking. He didn't ask back when he should have, and he signed the rights away, quite literally.

But, as he reasons, she came out here to help him. She clearly needs help. And if there's one thing she'll never be good at - it's asking for help.

She doesn't answer right away. She doesn't have to. He never asked, when he should have. They worked in the same hospital, revolving around each other, consciously avoiding the other's path. He must have heard, about the successes and the miracles and the disasters and the deaths that went on in her OR. But he never asked.

Of course she didn't answer last night. What they say about first loves, that trite line about how you never forget them? It's not strictly true. You _can_ , and will, forget them. They fade to a blissful remembrance in the back of your mind, and you find other people. People who look at you the way they used to.

And you let yourself forget, but the part that's true is that there will always be a lingering feeling of...possession. You can't hurt them. There's a need to protect, a desire to keep them from harm.

Derek was her first love, and she couldn't have hurt him last night. That little girl, her father's decision. The child he left behind, alone in the world, with a disease that would kill him. The way it killed their child.

She couldn't save that girl, either, the way she couldn't save their daughter.

And yes, this time it really was her fault.

* * *

 ** _Okay, for this who have watched PP, I'm talking about the heartbreaking episode with the family who all have cystic fibrosis. The daughter has a deadly infection, and is in isolation. The dad can't go see her or hold her as she dies, because he will get the infection and die. And he makes the decision to leave his toddler son to... well, god knows, and the baby cries as he holds his dying daughter and this really beautiful song plays_** **_(Love Me Now, Jesca Hoop) and Addison's more destroyed than she usually is over a patient's death - so much that she goes and kisses arrogant, cocky, completely gorgeous Wyatt Lockhart. The timeline matched with this fic, because later Archer seizes and then they're all in Seattle and then...you know what happens, then._**

 ** _Also, I'm being very vague about what happened in New York with their child. All in good time. Suspense is good, you guys._**

 ** _You know what else is good? Reviews. They are very, very good. Can I please have some?_**

 ** _And now I will go back to the library and study and hopefully I'll get some reviews that make me feel better!_**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Suspense is good, but only up to a point , in the words of awesome reader, reviewer and writer Mary Rose, who is totally right. So here you are. Little vague, mostly wrapping up things in Seattle before we move on to other things. Which will come in due time, so...patience!_**

* * *

There is, as always, a scrum of people at Richard's door, and of course, like always, they stare.

It's not overt, of course not, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel the eyes slide over his back, darting away the minute he turns to them.

Word gets around. He was out of control, floundering, making a spectacle. They watched in stunned silence that surely turned into a barrage of words after he left.

 _He's losing it._

 _Heard they can't talk him into coming back._

 _What's she doing here?_

The newer interns and residents are unaware of the connection between them, but they stare because the others do. They know.

Everyone knows. Didn't she stalk him down these very corridors, didn't he kiss her cheek in passing so many times? Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Shepherd, different people but the same name.

She walks beside him, the proverbial redheaded stepchild, her reputation here written in stone before she could say a word. He made sure of that, didn't he?

Satan, he called her.

They cut a swathe through the crowd, her heels clicking purposefully ahead of him. She's an arm's length ahead of him, too far to touch, close enough that he can feel the tension radiating from her.

 _I'm lonely_ she said once, her eyes lost. She was lonely here, isolated, preceded by her reputation. She made few friends, but they still ask about her. She has this way, of getting people to take to her, that never fails to amaze - or irritate - him.

Bailey never talks to _him_ that way, he wonders. Callie tends to look at him like she found him on the bottom of her shoe.

Anyway, she hates it here. Hate- hates it. And yet, she came. She stayed, when he asked her to.

When she called, that night, her voice terrified, pleading, he half expected her to beg him to fly out. She didn't. He realises that she's stopped expecting him to help, to years ago.

What does it matter now, he asks himself, annoyed, as Richard beckons them in. It was all so long ago.

"Addie." he says warmly, sweeping her into a hug. "Here for your job?"

"You wish." she laughs. "LA suits me."

"I have to say it does." he smiles, pulling out a chair for her. Why is he even noticing?

He realises they're both looking at him, expecting him to speak.

"I -" he clears his throat; Richard silently pours him a glass from the carafe behind the desk. "I'll be back whenever you want me to be."

"Are you - " Richard stops short, clearly thinking better of it, redirecting his question to Addison. "Is he okay?"

"He will be." she says, and he feels her hand brush his, withdraw. He might have imagined it. "It just takes a while, doesn't it - I mean, sometimes we all just need some.."

She trails off, waving her hand in a gesture they're supposed to assume means something.

"Space?" Richard suggests, and she nods, the hand falling back to her lap.

 _What do you need space from?_

"I think you should take a break." Richard is saying. His tone is firm, although his eyes are kind.

"I need to cut, I can cut, I'm fine." he replies. They exchange a look. It cuts through him like a knife; they have no right. It's not their place to be concerned.

"Richard," he says, leaning forward, hands on his polished desk. "You can't bench me. Every day I'm out of that OR were losing patients, losing money -"

"Funny you didn't think of that before you took off to drink yourself to death." he snaps, his eyes flashing; he's reminded of the dressings-down he's received at various points early on his career from him. "We managed just fine without you then, well manage now. Take a week, go somewhere. Clear your head, Shep, come back fresh."

"Derek, I think-"

"Shut up."

The words leap off his tongue, and he sees it register on her face, a brief glimpse of pain. He shouldn't have.

But she has no say. Why can't she just stop talking?

Right. He brought her here.

No. Richard made her come. She didn't have to.

But she did.

Damn it. He really shouldn't have said that.

"Fine." she says coolly. "I'm going to go find Callie, so I guess this is goodbye, Richard."

He hugs her again, patting her back with gruff pride, offering her her old job again, she declines, they back-and-forth about LA, he says he'll come visit. He won't. She knows, but she still smiles.

And then she's gone.

"Derek Whatever the hell it is Shepherd." Richard says severely, sitting down aacross him. The desk stretches between them like a gulf, yawning wide. "She didn't have to come, you know."

"I saved her brother." he points out. In his book, saving Archer's life is worth a thousand free potshots at Addison. The man hated him before he met him.

 _She's a thoroughbred_ he said once, his voice an icy sneer. _Who are you?_

He's the man Archer's sister married, that's all he ever was. Addison could have stabbed him in cold blood and Archer would help her hide the body and then swear up hill and down dale that she was innocent. He didn't just pick sides in their marriage - he tried to make _them_ pick sides.

It rarely worked, which he supposes was some sort of good sign. They ended up divorced, though, anyway. Maybe Archer was right. Maybe he never was good enough.

And yet he dropped everything - he remembers, with a pang, the rose petals hastily swept away, candles extinguished, the ring safely hidden away - and tried a risky surgery that could have killed the man and ruined his reputation.

That happened anyway, so whatever.

"No more than your duty." Richard glares. "You could be a little grateful."

"I would have come back anyway." he reminds him. "Even if she hadn't shown up to nag me."

"Nagging is what a wife does."

"She's not my wife."

"She used to be."

"Well, she isn't anymore."

"And yet," he leans back in his chair, and is that...is Richard Weber _smirking_ ? "She's the only one who could haul your butt out of those woods."

* * *

"Look at _you_." Callie sings, enveloping her in a bear hug that almost lifts her clear off her feet. "Finally decided to come back?"

"No, thought I'd meet you guys before I flew out." she laughs.

"You again?" Bailey exclaims, grinning. "Please tell me you didn't bring your brother back."

"No, he's fine." she says, realising she's made a colossal mistake.

No one knows she came back. They weren't supposed to know. It won't make sense to them, to anyone except Richard, because he knows them. He knows how they work.

"She's back!" Callie is cheering.

"I'm not back." she says hastily. "Just...visiting. Some family."

"You don't have family." Callie says suspiciously. "You're like me. Your family only magically appears in times of distress, or actual joy, to cause the opposite emotion. Spill."

"I do have family." she says with dignity, which is surprisingly difficult when she's lying through her teeth. "A cousin."

"Really." Bailey snorts.

"You like your letter of recommendation?" she asks sweetly; she blanches and walks away quickly.

"What letter?" asks the blonde standing at Callie's elbow.

"Nothing." Callie says quickly. "Uh, Addison, Arizona, Arizona, Addison."

"Hi!" the blonde chirps. She has a monkey sewn onto her lab coat. "I've heard a lot about you."

 _Butterfly scrub cap?_ she mouths at Callie as she whizzes away on ... wheelie sneakers. Wow.

Callie blushes furiously, nodding as she starts gathering her things. "I have a surgery right now, but we could maybe grab a drink-"

She winces, shaking her head. "I leave in the afternoon, sorry, so ...bye, I guess."

She exchanges her second round of hugs today, promising to call more often.

She runs into Mark outside her old office, and he breaks into a wide grin.

"Couldn't stay away, could you." he smirks lasciviously. She's actually missed his antics, she realises as he drags her outside for coffee, making her laugh, asking her if she's really back.

"No, I -" she realises the story she fed Bailey and Callie won't fly with him. If there's anyone who knows her the way her ex-husband does, it's Mark Sloan. You can't spend the better part of two decades together without knowing someone like the back of your hand.

"He called you, didn't he." he accuses, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "To drag Derek's sorry ass back here."

"He did." she laughs with him. She's heard the story from Callie, how she and Dr. Hunt together weren't enough to convince Derek to come back. Apparently all three of them got extremely drunk and had a heart-to-heart, the details of which she staunchly refuses to provide.

"Thanks." Mark says suddenly, his hand covering hers.

"Why?"

"Lexie and I - " he says, stops, rephrases. "I'm happy, really happy. I came clean with Derek, like you said, and -"

"He punched the crap put of you?" she snorts. She couldn't believe it, the two of them, hitting each other. Willfully causing harm.

 _You did that_ she thought at the time. She started it, she drive the wedge between them, and nothing was ever the same.

What if she hadn't slept with Mark?

She used to imagine it all the time, back when she was the only one in her marriage and had a lot of free time. They'd still be in New York. Maybe they would have that practice they'd talked about, all three of them sharing offices. It would have been, in Mark's words, _ideal_. Maybe they would have had a baby. Two. Maybe they would have been divorced after all; maybe it was preordained. For the best.

"It works out." he's telling her. "You fall in love and you fight and you lose but it works out, you know, in the end."

"I'm happy for you." she tells him, sincerely, because she is. She's had his heart, and she gave it back. She has no cause to be jealous, and after all they were friends long, long before they were ever lovers. She _wants_ him to be happy.

He leaves her with a rib-crushing hug and a promise to come see her in LA.

They've all changed, she reflects. They've moved on. She's moved on.

It really is over.

There's nothing left for her here. She's free to leave, but there's one more place she needs to go before she can go home.

* * *

"You've both been through a lot." he's saying softly, pointedly not looking at him. "Things like that...it changes you. Connects you in ways that don't break. Adele and I, even after everything weve been through-" he pauses, faraway. "I don't think anyone will ever get me the way that woman does."

"It was a long time ago. We're both okay." he says briskly. "I'll take a break, whatever you want."

"Don't just take a break - what happened to you in there wasn't just that one case, Derek, it's years of this stress, building up until you can't take it anymore, not just work...everything."

"I've gotten through that."

"Have you?" he's studying him closely over his steepled fingers. "I know you, Derek. You don't freeze. I've watched you from the beginning, and I've never seen you lose it like that."

 _Like that_ meaning to the point where his judgement was so clouded that he almost killed not one but two people in there.

If Addison hadn't stood her ground, if she hadn't stepped in to deliver the baby when she did...

He knows that now. What did he say to her?

 _"You save babies, don't you Addie? Just not_

Ours. Just not ours.

He always thought he got through those dark days alone. Now, he's not so sure. He couldn't handle the death of a woman he barely knew, he almost collapsed under the knowledge that he was, in some way, responsible for her death. He couldn't stop it, couldn't save her. He did his best but in the end it didn't matter.

There's no way he managed to get through their child's death alone.

If nothing else, he owes her that much.

"Yeah." he says. "I guess you're right."

"Thank you." Richard sighs, looking relieved.

"Derek?"

"Yeah?" he turns around, already one hand on the doorknob.

"You need to lay things to rest, son." he says, his eyes soft, sad. "Do what you need to do."

And just like that, he knows where he's going.

* * *

 ** _Please review; it seriously boosts my mood. And makes me write quicker._**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Hi, guys! Thanks for all your reviews and feedback. It really encourages me.**_

 _ **For those who thought they were going to LA; oh, honey, NO. That would be too easy.**_

* * *

There's a slight chill in the air, the breeze nipping at her skin, the last strains of summer fading away. The leaves are turning, blanketing the ground in shades of crisp gold and red, and she has to wade through a veritable pile of them just to get through the front door.

He carried her over this threshold once, after they bought the house. They were slightly tipsy and laughing, her lips almost too numb to feel his, but his arms were sure around her, and they somehow managed to get into the house without falling down.

Now, she kicks a few leaves off the worn welcome mat, trying not to picture tiny shoes scattered across it, small sandy footprints still etched on the porch in her mind. The lock takes some work - it's been nearly a year since anyone was here - but it creaks open in the end, releasing a tidal wave of memories.

It smells of neglect inside, the cold unwelcome feel of an abandoned home. She remembers when it was always warm and sunny here, when the air smelled of salt and the sea, when laughter echoed down the stairs. It's so empty now, dust sheets draped ghostlike over the furniture they picked out so carefully. Every picture on the walls, every vase, the rugs, the wide, sunwashed pine floorboards, they deliberated over each one.

Now, neither of them can can bear to look at them.

She took out all the pictures, she recalls, that day she spent here after the divorce. She left the frames gaping empty, ready for whoever would live here next.

She couldn't sell it, though. He was so happy here, one of the last places he'd ever been happy.

But the frames still sit there staring blankly at her, the house so coolly impersonal she feels like an intruder.

She makes her way slowly up the stairs, one hand trailing slowly up the banister. She sees small fingers gripping the bars carefully, little feet shaky on the steps. The landing is thick with dust, tickling her nose. All the doors are closed tightly, the three down the hall have always been closed, but the two closest to her should be open. They always used to be open.

Their old room is almost the way they left it, that last night, silent in their grief, accusations screaming in their heads. There's a dead fly on the windowsill, the tiny carcass feather light. She blows it out of the window, inviting a cool gust of air into the musty room. It feels good, like it's clearing out her lungs, freeing her of the memories saturating this house.

The room across the hall, the one they didn't touch that last day, she hesitates a moment before she lets herself in.

* * *

There's a reason they used to come here only in the summer, he realises, staring out at the grey sea, under a grey sky, as cold as he feels inside. The trees are starting to change color, bright streaks against the bleak sky. The roads are familiar and he can find his way in the dusky light as well as he could have six years ago, his mind wandering.

The first summer here, the joyful cacophony of it, reliving younger years, Naomi and Sam and Mark. Amy. They weren't as young as they used to be but they were younger than they are now, so blindingly _happy_. Nothing could touch them then, they were invincible, and why not? They were the brightest and they were on their way to being the best, in love, successful, surrounded by people they loved. Why not?

The second summer, just the two of them, reveling in the feel of their baby kicking, caught up in cotton candy dreams that melted sour in their mouths.

The third, the fourth. Hardly daring to breathe, waiting. Watching. Waiting. Praying.

No wonder he hates the place. It's good he won't be staying there tonight; he honestly has no idea what Addison did with it. After all, it's hers now to do with it what she will, the rambling empty house full of as many dark memories as there are bright.

It's stupid, actually. He knows better. His daughter does not linger in this park, as pretty as it is, perched on a bluff, twenty four rickety wooden steps down to the ocean where they scattered her ashes.

She isn't really smiling at him from that swing, mouth stretched in terrified glee, she isn't calling to him from the slide - _look at me, Daddy!_ \- she isn't twirling in the sandbox, pretending to be a mermaid.

But he feels like she is. And so he lowers himself slowly onto the heavy carved bench, his fingers tracing the engraved words.

 ** _In Loving Memory of Julia Shepherd._**

 ** _May you touch stars and dragonflies, dance with fairies, and talk to the moon._**

"We hardly ever called her that."

It's getting dark, the half-bare branches clawlike in the dim light. He should be startled, maybe even afraid. At the least, surprised, but he feels like he should have guessed already.

Of course she would come here. He scoots over silently, letting her fold herself onto the edge, her hand tracing the words exactly like he did.

It wasn't either of their ideas, this bench. Their grief seemed too much to be quantified, a raging sea with no boundaries. He doesn't know who suggested it. He remembers Addison asking him, her voice nervous, almost scared, if he liked the inscription.

He doesn't remember what he said, but there isn't a grave. That much, they agreed on, perhaps already knowing, subconsciously, that they would tear away from each other, escape to new cities, new lives. So they scattered their daughter in the ocean she loved instead, and someone had this idea, and now there is a heavy wooden bench on the very edge of the bluff, facing the water thirty feet below them.

It used to be blue, the color faded with sun and rain into a soft hue that seems natural out in the open, butterflies and flowers and creeping vines pressed into its surface, the edges nicked by countless little curious hands. They didn't put her age in the inscription, but it's clearly meant for a child. Small, just the right height for little legs.

She used to live sitting on this grass, _criss cross applesauce_ , tugging at handfuls of green grass. The air was cleaner here, better for her lungs, and she laughed and played and fell and cried here, and somehow, after everything that's happened, he feels like she might still be here.

"I know." he replies, Addison's profile in the corner of his eye as familiar as the twisting pain in his chest.

"Jules." she laughs, a mangled sound choked with tears.

"Juju." he smiles, lifting his hand to the still-warm wood. "What would she say if she saw us here?"

"Get off my bench?" Addison says, leaning back. What must they look like, two adults sitting on a tiny bench in the gathering darkness, knees to their chest, pretending not to cry?

He wonders what people think, when they see this bench. Of course, most people know. Some might still remember the dark haired child who played here, the sound of her laugh, the rattle of her breathing. Do they hold their own children a little closer when they see it, a tangible reminder of how short life is, how lucky they are to be able to touch and kiss and hold their babies?

"I haven't been here in a while." she admits.

"Me neither."

"I think about her-" he begins.

"Every day." she finishes.

It's not enough, and it never will be. There will always be a Juju shaped hole in their hearts, but right now, sitting here, with Addison, he feels for the first time in years like someone understands him.

And that's enough.

* * *

 _ **I am a firm believer in sad-Shepherd- baby backstory. Shonda said she wanted to give them one, on the show, but if course she didn't because it's called Grey's Anatomy, not Shepherd's Anatomy, and because she seems to always have it out for Addison.**_

 _ **Anyway, I'll live in my fantasies and imagine Addek with three kids and a dog. You can join me if you want, all you gotta do is review! It's free! Please?**_


	6. Chapter 6

**_To the raving guest by the name of MerDer2015; hon, this is pure Addek, as advertised. I do write two MerDer fics, where you can go get your kicks. Or not, I couldn't care less. I'm all for constructive criticism, but yours was rude and hurtful._**

 ** _To everyone else, thank you sooo much. You are amazing readers._**

 ** _To the guest called Pretty Please, that's a lovely idea for a story, but I'm almost a hundred percent sure there's a very similar Addek fanfic like that on the site. If not, I'll definitely consider it!_**

* * *

Of course, they both know its a mistake. Of course, they both let it happen. It's a pattern with them; don't acknowledge it, and it doesn't matter.

How many times have they stared at each other in silence, let an issue slide when they should have discussed it? How many times did they ignore each other, say the thing they knew the other wanted to hear just to end the argument, scheduled surgeries at the wrong time, spent too long at the hospital?

Those were all cognisant mistakes, and this is just another one, he reckons as he follows Addison up the dusty steps to the porch. Like diving into the shallow end of the pool, knowing it can't end well, but craving the plunge anyway.

She hasn't left the porch light on, he realises as she fumbles with the thick bunch of keys. She never remembered the porch light, and it inevitably resulted in one of them grappling with the keys - _all_ the keys, because she insisted on having the keys to the brownstone and the practice and her office in the hospital and her car keys and her locker keys all on one ring, usually with a dangly, jangly keychain - and bickering about whether or not this minor irritation justified leaving the light on when they went out to dinner. Or walked on the beach, at night. They used to do that.

"Can you see?" he asks, keeping his voice neutral.

"No."

He digs his phone out of his pocket, turning it on and turning it to her so she can find the key. It takes a while in the lock - needs oil, he thinks before he remembers it's not his anymore - and it also takes him a while to realise what's wrong.

"Wait...I thought you sold the place."

"Well, I didn't."

"You sent me half!"

"What I estimated would be half if I had sold it." she admits. "Besides, I erred a little on the generous side, so don't complain."

"I'm not complaining, I'm just asking."

"I...couldn't." she says, shoving him lighlty back towards the door; he remembers that shoes are not allowed in this house. "I rent it some summers, Sav and Weiss came once, but its mostly been shut up, but now that I'm definitely settled in LA, I'm-"

"Selling?"

"Maybe."

It's easy, muscle memory, to find the switches on the wall and flood the living room with light, revealing familiar hulking shapes draped in white. He realises guiltily that he left her to deal with their remnants alone; he never returned to either home after he left New York and never asked what she did with them, save for the things he requested.

"The brownstone-"

"Actually sold that one." she rolls her eyes.

There's nothing more to say, so he sets his overnight bag at the foot of the stairs, noticing that it's cleaner than the porch. She must have been planning to stay for a while.

She's watching him, not bothering to hide the fact, leaning against the sheeted couch. Eyes narrowed, mouth pursed, the picture of disapproval.

"What."

"Does anyone know you're here?"

He needs a minute to come up with the answer - Richard? No, he said he was taking a week off, but not where he was going.

Meredith and he haven't spoken since the night she drive to his trailer and he drove her off.

Mark has no idea whatsoever.

He has no one else in Seattle.

No one knows where he is. And right now, it feels blissful.

* * *

She hears the door slam through the rush of the water in her ears, not as hot as she'd like it to be, but enough to wash the taint of today's memories off her skin. He's probably outside, she reasons. Hopefully calling someone, before they launch a search party.

He never used to call, in the later years. She'd call the practice and hear he had already left; sometimes the nurses told her, apologetically, that he'd gone into surgery. No, it'll be a while. No, he isn't taking calls. She'd come to the hospital in the mornings to find him wandering out of an on call room, bleary eyed and stiff.

But before, before everything, he was the boyfriend who insisted on walking her up three flights of stairs even when it wasn't dark and the fiancé who memorised her OR schedule and the husband who left notes with her nurses to tell her he'd be home before her.

She wonders which end of the deal Meredith is experiencing now, if they're still in the rosy flush of early love or if the glow has started to fade, graying at the edges.

She stays under the water for a long time, letting it run soothing fingers over her aching scalp. She used to love it in here - the bath, not the shower, the shower came later when she was too weak to sit up - and she'd splash for hours. Bubble beards and veils. Rubber ducks, boats bobbing in strawberry scented water. Sand sifting along the bottom of the tub from feet that had been on the beach all day.

 _Water baby_ Derek called her. He was going to teach her to fish, he threatened; they'd spend whole days out on the water when she was older.

She imagined days too. Shopping. Doing nothing. Walking in Central Park, talking about everything and anything. Things that mothers do with their daughters.

Not that she had any experience in the area. But Derek said it was instinct, that she wasn't Bizzy. She would be a good mother.

 _Motherhood is eighteen years of unrelenting guilt , darling_ Carolyn laughed, hugging her, enveloping her in a soft cloud of perfume. _And a lifetime of worrying._

It was. She worried that she didn't have morning sickness - and then, when it hit, she worried it was too much, that the baby was being deprived. She counted kicks and flutters. She ate right, took the vitamins and shots, did the exercises, went to the stupid Lamaze classes.

She didn't drink. She didn't smoke. She gave up sushi and soft cheese and all things smoked, which left her bagels bare and forlorn but who cared, because they were having a baby. No coffee, even when she was dragging by afternoon, even when she had hours-long surgeries.

They both went to the appointments, Derek gloating at the screen. He made her sleep more than she had since college, took on the role of personal chef, and secretly assigned a much-abused intern to make sure she didn't lift anything more than a chart (she sussed him in the end, but it was so sweet she let it go) and he dutifully did midnight craving runs and gave back massages and read to her belly and spent three days assembling a crib more complicated than one of his surgeries.

They did all of it right.

And she was perfect. Until she wasn't.

It was innocent, at first. A little cold, her button nose stuffed up. She howled and was feverish and cranky. She dripped baby Tylenol down her throat and kissed her cheek, salty with tears. Her hot little forehead. Her belly. Her toes.

Of course not she thought silently. Not them, with their baby proofed house and organic diaper cream.

But nothing they done could have changed it. She knew that. Genetics, a life mapped out in her womb before she knew it was there. But she couldn't help blaming herself, because she needed to blame _someone_. Blaming herself was the easiest.

It's chilly in the small room, sunfaded curtains stirring in a draft from the window. Derek always meant to find that infinitesimal gap and do...something, about it, but summer after summer he never got around to it. It seems suddenly insignificant in the eake of everything esle that happened in those summers, but she'll have to do it herself if she intends to sell the house.

Well, it's a good thing she's so handy with sinks. Windows shouldn't be too different. Hopefully.

She shutters the window firmly, blocking out the chill air and the dark. Those shutters were secretly why she loved the house - dark blue against white, pink dogswood bright against them, it was the perfect beach house idyll, as different from Bizzy's gray shingles and impersonal decor as possible. She's pretty sure Derek was sold on the proximity to the water.

It's brighter and warmer downstairs, lights flooding the familiar area, and...Derek is sitting on the newly de-sheeted and dusted couch, grinning. Its so familiar and yet so alien all at once that she nearly falls down the last four or so steps, but manages to catch herself.

What is he up to?

She nearly trips over her bare feet and falls headlong down the stairs, but she's Addison so of course she doesn't. Instead, she settles for an expression of mild curiosity, perching gingerly on the couch, which groans under her weight, making her grimace.

"Your favorite." he gestures to the steaming, melting pizza in the box as he hands her a beer. "I was starving, and I thought-"

"Thanks." she says, still looking surprised. This was a kind of tradition, their first night here every summer. There weren't any groceries, and she'd have spent the whole day rearranging everything to her idea of perfection - even if the cleaners had been by - and so they always had pizza.

She takes a bite, closing her eyes. Her hair, longer when its wet, almost to her shoulders, darker red, is leaving a half circle of droplets on the shoulders of her gray sweatshirt. Ah. The Yale sweatshirt. Of finals, midterms, breakup major argument, and parental run-in fame.

It is, as he knows, her security blanket, so to speak. It makes an appearance when she needs a little emotional support, and he knew, whenever he saw it, to be a little careful of her mood, her temper. She wore it their first midterm, every finals, that one time he broke up with her (third year, for a week. She also wore the sweatshirt for a week) and every time her parents swept through her carefully ordered life, leaving a trail of tears and empty wine bottles.

She wore it to sleep, sometimes, in the hospital. And after.

But jokes aside, the sight of her in it now brings a lump to his throat and he sets his pizza down.

"Come on." she encourages. "It's greasy, but you'll still fit in your tux."

His confusion must be etched on his face, because she laughs. "Your wedding? Meredith might be mad if you look like you did in high school, but one slice won't do that."

"Excuse me." he takes a healthy swallow of beer. "You're one to talk." He says it to cover up the fact that, until now, he had coveniently and completely forgotten the fact that he essentially proposed to Meredith.

"You had braces." he reminds her.

"You had an _afro._ " she tosses back. "I always had nice hair."

"True." he consents. "But you were such a band geek."

"You played the tuba!"

"Clarinet, piano." he points his slice at her. "And you liked Star Wars."

"Did not."

"Yes you did, you said -"

"Skippy Gold liked Star Wars, not me." she retorts. "And anyway, you were in the Dungeons and Dragons club."

He winces in defeat, and she smirks. "Let's just say we were both unpopular in high school."

"Do you think she would have been?" He blurts it before he can think, the words scalding his tongue like the hot cheese. No need to explain which _she_.

He shouldn't have. They should have just spent this one evening together without the spectre of grief in the air and gone their separate ways in the morning, back to lives carefully constructed around their ragged edges.

But she takes a deep breath, and answers. Maybe she's feeling the same release he is, the flood of emotions oent up too long. He hasn't said her name since he went to Seattle. No one knows, except Richard and Adele and Mark.

The picture on his desk is his family, all his sisters and their husbands and their pile of children, his mother, grinning happily at a family reunion. It was taken before he left New York, but Addison isn't in it. She had a conference, or something, he remembers. Julia wasn't born yet. It's the one picture of his former life without his wife and child.

Ex-wife.

Anyway, there's nothing to suggest the presence of a daughter. No pictures, no keepsakes. He keeps them safely in a box, and Meredith is almost religious about privacy. She never looks in his things, for which he is grateful.

"She would have been pretty." Addison says, smiling almost unconsciously. "Popular, who cares. She'd have been smart."

"Not like she had a choice." he jokes weakly. "Excellent genes."

"Don't take all the credit."

He isn't. He agrees she would have been pretty, and he's biased, but she was, cherubic with her dark curls and her mother's eyes. She was smart, talking in sentences at a year old. But she was half Addison, half him. All perfect.

..

They eat in silence, their conversation hanging in the air between them. He knows she's thinking about Julia. He can see it in the vacant eyes, the downturned mouth. He wonders if she ever speaks about it, in LA. Naomi knows. Sam knows. They came, for the memorial service. Naomi called every day for weeks afterward, trying to get them to come down to LA.

 _A change_ she said. The sun would be good for them. They didn't have the heart to tell her they had never wanted anything to change at all, and gradually she stopped calling and then Addison refused to do speak about it. There must have been an argument, but he never really knew - or asked - about the details.

"How are Nae and Sam?" he asks tentatively while she sniffs suspiciously at the glass of water he handed her in the kitchen.

"Good. Divorced." she answers, tipping the glass down the drain. Apparently dehydration is preferable to (admittedly slightly stale) tap water.

"Was that one sentence or two words?"

"Same thing, really."

Right.

"They ask about you," she continues. "Sometimes."

"I should call." he says ruefully. "Sam does, but-"

"You're busy." she says softly. "Derek. Have you told Meredith?"

He gets the sense she isn't asking if he's told Meredith where he is. She's asking about something deeper.

But that's exactly it - Meredith is his fresh air, his new start. She doesn't know his history, she doesn't watch him closely whenever he's with a child, waiting for him to break. She doesn't know why his marriage fell apart. And she loves him.

Would she still love him, if he'd told her?

"No," he swallows dryly. "She doesn't know where I am."

Or why.

"You need to _tell her._ " Addison is saying, exasperated, picking up his phone and thrusting it at him. "She deserves to know."

But Meredith was angry, the night she left the trailer. He'd sent the ring spinning into the night, he'd said things that cut her to the quick. She won't want to know where he is.

"Call." Addison insists.

"It's okay."

"No," she snaps. "It's not. Derek, it's not okay to just leave, younhave what it's like-"

"Drop it, Addison." he replies tersely; the tentative warmth they had built up dissolving into icy tension.

"You're never the one left behind, that's why you won't understand." she says, her cheeks heating up. "You walk away, that's what you do best."

"You don't know what youre talking about. I'll handle it."

"You call, or I will." she says, her face settling into a look of determination. "You can't just ruin your relationship-"

She's keying deftly through his phone now, it won't take her long to find the number. _Meredith._ He used to have hers saved under _Addie_ ; a few months after the divorce, he'd called her to ask her some or the other logistical detail about the dissection of their lives, and the nickname burned like salt in his fresh wounds. The wounds that, so far, he had been ignoring, but it stung enough that he changed it to _Addison_ and felt a rush of relief as he erased another figment of his past.

"Put it down." he says sharply.

She stares silently, the cool blue light illuminating tired eyes and a severe frown. Her finger stays poised over the screen.

"Put it _down_ , Addison."

"You're making the same mistakes again, Derek-"

" _Put_ the phone _down,_ Addison-"

"That's what you say, that's what you always say, Derek, it won't work this time."

* * *

 ** _Bit longer than usual, but I felt like it. Anyone guess what happened to Julia? It's not so much a diagnosis as much as just collecting the facts so far._**

 ** _On which note, I'm done with exams! I'll be updating more often now._**

 ** _I always intended to bring Meredith into the story, even though it's Addek endgame, because at this point their relationship wasn't insignificant enough to be dismissed. And Addison was always very...interested in their relationship, to the point where she yelled and glared at Derek when he broke up with Meredith (I hugged her, Derek! Hugged her!)_**

 ** _So anyway, please review!_**


	7. Chapter 7

**_Thank you so much for the sweet reviews on the last chapter! I love you guys!_**

 ** _To the crazy MerDer shipper - GO. AWAY. I'm so tired of you I can't even think of names to call you._**

* * *

In the end they lapse into silence, flames burning out hot and fast. They always do; it's easier that way. Hurts less.

She leaves him to do what he will, he leaves her to brew in silence, on the other side of the room, in the dark. The warmth of the evening fades quickly, extinguishing the faint spark they both felt.

He shouldn't have yelled. But she shouldn't have pushed. But she always pushes, and he always yells. It's how they work.

Used to work.

Their third year, their first clinical rotation, he clammed up putting in a central line. He could feel the ER residents and attendings staring, smirking, judging, until someone finally took the needle from him and did it.

Addison handed him a kit and made him do it over and over and over again until the rubber skinned mannequin had holes in it. He could do it in his sleep after that. He needs pushing, always has.

Their intern year, Addison was on the code team when a patient she had grown close to died while she was doing compressions. She locked herself in the bathroom and cried until someone - tired of cajoling and consoling - thought to find Derek, and then he stood outside the door and yelled until she came out, furious, to tell him to shut up. It works, always has, until now.

Now, he can't take her shoving and she can't take his yelling.

They sleep in the living room, too tired to dust off the upstairs rooms, and they won't be here long anyway. He's leaving in the morning. He hasn't asked Addison when she's leaving, but assumes it will be soon. Neither of them can bear this house anymore.

He insists, gruffly, that she take the couch; she acquiesces with a curt nod and icy silence. He lies flat on his back, feeling every line between the floorboards through the thin rug.

There was, he remembers, a sleeping bag here somewhere, a relic of the past when they needed sleeping bags to accommodate the overflow of Shepherds in the summer. He moves carefully to avoid waking Addison, sleeping restlessly above him. Her eyes are closed, lashes - unassuming red-brown when she washes off the mask she wears all day - curled against her cheek. Her forehead creases slightly, worry filling even her dreams. She used to sleep like that, halfway, when Julia first got sick, one hand on the baby's chest, rise and fall, rise and fall, more awake than asleep. He didn't sleep at all, just watched them until sometimes his eyes shut and he woke with his heart pounding, guilty somehow.

It isn't in the hall closet, which is still crammed with sand toys. It isn't in the closet upstairs, but there's a small shadow hiding under the shelf in there, giggling, and he leaves the door open. It isn't in the old master bedroom, which still has the jar of sea glass Addison collected, green and blue and red and pink and everything in between, rounded smooth edges and twisted shapes piled up into a broken rainbow.

"I gave it away." she admits, coming up cat-silent behind him. "Didn't see much point keeping it."

"Did I wake you?" he asks, unsettled by the look in her eyes. Like she can see right through him. "Sorry."

"I wasn't really sleeping."

He used to do that too, oretend to be asleep when she came in at night, because it was so much easier than facing what he thought was accusation in her eyes. She went and found a way to make it better, to fight the thing that cost them their daughter while his grief curdled and turned inward, a festering infection, turning him bitter and angry.

He lets it go this time, because the accusations have long since faded and it's been long enough that his anger has cooled.

"Is there anything you want?" she asks quietly, drumming slender fingers on the windowsill. Her hair, half dry, obscures her face but he can tell she's blinking back tears.

She was like this a lot, early in her pregnancy, her moods shifting and swaying so fast it was all he could do to keep up. When Julia was born, though, they stabilised, only to shift again with earthquake force when they received the diagnosis.

"I'm...I'm putting it on the market, before I go back." she explains, suddenly steady.

He fingers the small glass jar, the top sugared with fine dust. He remembers, suddenly, the first time she picked up a piece on the beach, blowing sand off it.

A long-ago nanny told her they were pieces of mermaids' jewelry, and the image of a small Addison collecting sea glass all alone on a beach had made him sad. He wondered if Julia would have believed it.

She would have. She loved mermaids. She wanted to be one, when she grew up.

 _Candy_ , she insisted, clutching the jar in both hands; after that, it was relegated to a high shelf in their bedroom where little hands couldn't reach it.

He hands her the jar. "You keep it." he says gently.

* * *

He presses the jar into her hands, looking relieved to be rid of it, like it might burn him. She'll keep it. They deal with grief differently, she and Derek.

Derek likes to walk away. She likes to submerge herself in memories until it hurts so much she can't feel anything anymore.

She looks around the bare room, at the empty frames and bare wardrobes. Nothing else she'd like to keep here. He's already gone, waiting for her in the hallway. His phone casts a pale circle of light, and he uses it to step across to the door they don't open.

"Something of hers." he says softly. "So she feels real."

Of course. Sometimes, when she's the most relaxed, laughing, happy, her guilt brings heer crashing back down. How dare she laugh, smile, celebrate, live, while her baby is dead? Some days, it's barely real, and some days, she has to pause a minute before she recalls the precise words to a song, the feel of her daughter in her arms, the exact shade of her hair in the sun and the sound of her voice.

It's cold inside, she realises, too cold. This room was always, always warm, the humidifier chugging away. Air filters, heaters. It's never been so cold in here.

The curtains are drawn, the crib bare, one cupboard door - painted with pink fairies and purple stars - hangs open. The rug curls up in one corner, because she used to tug absently with both hands while she sat there and one or both of her parents read to her.

 _That one's going to be a surgeon_ Derek said proudly. Her hands were never still, always poking and exploring and touching. Even as a baby, one fist curled around her necklace, tangled in her hair while she nursed.

The shelf is still crammed with books, that they've never had occasion to open since then. None of Derek's sisters have such small children anymore, none of their friends even, and in the end she couldn't bear to give them away. Jules loved those books, _Lyle Lyle Crocodile_ and _A Baby Sister for Frances -_ that one made Derek grin at her _\- Angelina Ballerina and Peter Rabbit_ and _Winnie the Pooh._

He picks up a thin coloring book, each page scrawled with thick crayon. Purple suns and pink skies, red houses and green dogs. Puts it down again. It screams hospital, long hours spent in beds with nothing to do but color. They colored princesses and animals and jungles and cities she would never see. She pressed down on her crayons so hard they skidded across the paper and broke in a crumble of color.

 _I want to go home_ she whimpered. _Mama, I want to go home._

She came home, in the end, as hard as Derek fought. She loved him for it and hated him for it, his unending belief that everything would be fine, that their child would be miraculously healthy and they would go on home to a normal life. That they would cry on the first day of kindergarten and college, sit through dance recitals and games, take her to parks and on trips and that he'd walk her down the aisle. Sometimes, at night, alone in their brownstone, she let herself - just for a blessed minute - slip into his fantasies.

The rest of the time, though, she was the practical one, making decisions. She was the one who pushed him to make that last, final, decision, the one he knew was necessary but he fought it tooth and nail. He doesn't ever give up, and she's always loved him for it.

Except then.

He's holding a tatty tailless puppy, its chewed-on ears covering half its face. It's rather uninspired name - Rover - belies how important it was. It's exactly as old as Julia herself. Mark brought it to the hospital - an hour after she was born, he was in surgery and missed the whole event - and it was almost as big as the baby. There's a picture, of a squalling hours-old Julia in her godfathers arms, one hand gripped tightly around the tail, which in later years succumbed to similar abuse.

"You want to keep that?" she asks, relieved she won't have to decide between giving it away and taking it home herself.

"Mark might like it." he swallows roughly. "He misses her too."

She nods. She's glad they've repaired the hole she made in their relationship, but she's only human and can't help but feel left out at the thought of the two men - the biggest part of her life for over two decades - together while she lives miles away. She wonders if they think of her as often as she thinks of them.

"He misses you." Derek continues, stroking the velvety head. "I miss you."

* * *

He can't believe he said that. But because it isn't true. It is. But because it's something you just don't say, like he never said he was sorry for what he said in the hospital before they brought Julia home for the last time.

She doesn't look surprised, though, just pained. "I miss you guys too."

They thought they would be together forever, their little unit of three. They almost were. Mark came with them for as long as he could to DC and to Philadelphia and to Cleveland and finally to Boston, dealing with the logistics of travel and treatments so both Derek and Addison could be with Julia. He drove them here the last time. He came back when they called, he helped Addison organise the memorial and the cremation. He left when they asked him to.

But they were fragile, full of cracks and just waiting to fall apart. What Mark and Addison did was just the reason. And then he left for Seattle, they followed him there, and the rest, as they say, is history.

And the truth is that he does miss her. Still, even years after they are legally divorced, he finds himself wanting to share a joke, a strange medical finding, an interesting surgery, a long day, with her, because she knows him the way no one else ever can. She can sense when he'd have had a bad day - he used to wonder if she counted the bodies being rolled out of his OR - and if she had the time would be waiting with a drink and the kind of chocolate she got him addicted to. He can never remember the name, and he still craves it, silky dark and just a little bitter.

"Come-" he starts, then stops. What can he say? Come back?

He has a ring, it's meant for Meredith. He saw the light flicker in Addison's eyes when she saw Mark with Lexie. He knows from Sam that there is someone serious in LA. Why would she come back? There's nothing for her in Seattle except bitter memories and curious stares.

Come on? He can't say that. Of course she misses them. There were five of them in med school, but DerekandAddison and Mark were the core of the group, Naomi and Sam and others the add-ons. They were family.

He can't think of a single thing to say, and then his phone buzzes.

 _Meredith_.

Addison's across the room, back to him, intent on something in her hands. A music box. It tinkles sweetly, covering the sound of his phone buzzing. He slips it back in his pocket, because he can't think of anything to say to Meredith either. And Meredith deserves more than he can give right now.

"Derek-" she whispers, and then she's crying. He's crying, tears blurring the photo she holds out, the three of them piled on the couch in the brownstone, Julia' grinning face smeared with whipped cream, Derek kissing a blob of it off Addison's cheek. And then he's kissing Addison for real, in the here and now, tasting salt this time, kissing her for no reason that he can articulate except that he knows he shouldn't.

She deserves more than he can give.

* * *

 ** _Okay, so I promise more about Julia in the next chapter...lots more._**

 ** _Until then, please please please review and let me know how you like it so far!_**


	8. Chapter 8

**_Hello. I love this story, and writing it is fun. What's not fun is the troll who seems to take pleasure in reading the whole fic and then commenting, chapter after chapter, how awful it is._**

 ** _So, troll, thanks for reading. I'm sure you'll find something to say about this as well. I look forward to seeing how far your primitive little mind can go._**

* * *

It feels like remembering. It feels safe. It feels like hundreds of shared memories and thousands of _I love yous_ and a lifetime together, to kiss him.

It's so wrong.

He was going to propose, Addison remembers vaguely, as he drags her closer, desperately, like he's trying to make up for something. He loves Meredith.

Meredith loves him.

But his hands on her are so familiar, and she's longed for this for years; a little piece of _before_. For him to kiss her like he used to, hungry and longing. For him to look at her like he used to. For them to share every banal detail of their lives.

She lets him. She kisses back. She wraps her arms around the curve of his shoulders - she remembers it like her own - and she sighs as he fits a palm to her cheek, tucking a damp strand of hair behind her ear.

"Sorry." he says, looking away. Ashamed. They've done this countless times, giggling in library stacks, sneakily in dorm corridors, in passing in the hospital, long and deep in their own home, a million times, most of them for no reason at all. And he still feels the need to apologise.

* * *

She doesn't say anything, just draws the back of her hand across her mouth, her face inscrutable.

He shouldn't have. He thinks guiltily of Meredith at home, worried about him. He should call her, go back to Seattle, give her the ring and let himself be swept up in the life he thinks he wants.

But it felt so right. He remembers the first time he did it. It was late and he insisted on walking her to her dirm after their first date because his father said to him once that that's what you're supposed to do. He opened doors and pulled chairs and sometimes offered to carry books and bags before Mark reminded him that women had the vote now and probably didn't appreciate what he called _sucking up._

He walked her three of the ten steps to the door of the building. She stopped. Turned around - not all the way, on the step above him, exactly his height in her heels. She was backlit by the light above the door, her eyes bright pools in the darkness, her hair deep red. He smiled. He said _good night._ And then - they've argued endlessly about this, and it remains unsolved - one of them kissed the other, and they've been doing it ever since. They fit together perfectly, her height matching his. His hands mold to her, she curves into him. They haven't forgotten.

He lets her go.

 _I put you in a tiny little box_ she said. He wants to stay in that box. He can't hurt her anymore than he already has. He sees that now.

He always thought Julia's death hit him the hardest. It was, of course, ridiculous, but he did. Call it grief, call it anger, call it anything you like - he reacted by lashing out. Addison...she shut everyone and everything out. She retreated into herself as he plunged headfirst into his rage.

He looked at her silent, frozen face and thought - _you don't care._ It's true that Julia was unplanned. But she was never unloved. When Addison found out she was pregnant, she cried. Sobbed. It was earlier than she had planned, she worked hellish hours. He cried too, but because he was happy. Deliriously happy.

When he realised they were crying for different reasons, they went to bed in stony silence. He woke up to Addison contemplating two bottles of vitamins in the kitchen, asking him if he thought she needed more magnesium. She was never unloved.

In the last hospital, the last time, when she stood over him, her shadow cast long over his slouched body, and asked him to sign away their daughter's life, she didn't cry.

He did. He cried, screamed, yelled.

 _Put it down, Addison_ he said to her as her pen hovered over the papers that said they would allow their child to die. He wanted the safety net of medications and defibrillators and ventilators. He wanted to feel like he was doing something instead of sitting idle watching his baby die of a disease _their_ genes gave her.

She wanted to let go, let a God who obviously didn't exist do whatever he wanted. She signed. She left him with the choice to sign or not sign.

 _She's miserable_ Addison said, her voice perfectly calm. _She's not getting better._

Jules said _I want to go home, Daddy._ She begged for ice cream and swimming and finger paint and swings. She said she wanted her own bed.

All he heard was Addison wanted to take their daughter home to die.

And they did.

Two weeks was how long they had, two long, heavenly, agonising weeks with their child before she was gone. He wanted to place his hands on her tiny chest, shove life back into her body. Years of training was hard to suppress as he watched the life drain out of the person he loved the most.

He was caught between letting go of Jules' hand and saving her, the latter winning out, Addison's arms around him, stopping him - _she's gone, you can't do anything, Derek stop -_ and then the feel of her limp and empty in his arms, her eyes not smiling like they used to even behind a respirator after days in the hospital.

She didn't let him save her. But now, he realises that there was nothing he could have done, anyway.

* * *

"I'm going to bed." she says quietly, setting down the music box. It gives a last, faint tinkle, and she runs her hand over the faded velvet.

"I'm sorry." he says again, heavily.

"Me too." she sighs, sagging against the wall. She should walk away, away from his shimmering eyes, away from this room with its quagmire of memories. Sje steps out into the hallway, closes the door on him, stops as if something is pulling her back.

The memories are all she has left. The snippet of a giggle, the snatch of a smile. She copied every single tape - first steps, birthdays, random Sundays - and sent them to him. She knew he'd want them. She wonders where he hides them.

Amd it's been such a long day. It feels like its been a lifetime since she came here. So she sinks onto the floor, head on her knees, back against the door.

He's still inside, she can hear him breathe. She hears the rustle of fabric as he slides down the other side of the door.

They sat like this the night before she left to start her fellowship. He was angry, she was numb, his words sliding like snow off her chilled skin.

 _You're running away_ he yelled. _You're probably glad. You never wanted her anyway_.

* * *

He remembers sitting like this the night before Addison left for the first six months of her fellowship, still breathing hard from venting his rage at her. He asked not to go. He told her not to go. He said it was too late, that it made no difference now.

She just stared blankly, like any desire to fight back had left her the instant their daughter had. She said it did make a difference; just not to them.

Other people's babies, other people's lives; she wanted to save them, when she wouldn't let him save theirs. That's all he could think of as he begged and asked and pleaded and finally warned.

She left anyway. She left, and he was alone in a house that was still full of their dead daughter. Toys on the floor that no one had picked up, small clothes still in the laundry. Colorful cups and cutlery in the kitchen, crayons underfoot, drawings on the fridge, stepstools in front of sinks, it was all gone by the time she came back. She never asked why, he never told her, and neither of them ever spoke of the duct taped boxes in the basement.

He wonders what she did with them, when she sold the brownstone. She'll have kept them; Addison has never thrown away so much as a baby sock. Mementoes of her own childhood were never treasured, and she seemed to compensate by archiving every aspect of their daughter's.

He hears her shift against the door, settling in. She slept in Julia's room, after. He'd come homhome from work - he was always working - and she'd be curled on the floor in the little bare room. He could never bring himself to wake her, so he sat there too, and when she left the phase behind in a few weeks, he sometimes still went in there at night. To get away from her.

Because by then she had descended into the impenetrable fog that seemed to drown her, her eyes open and unseeing, barely responding, as lost to him as if she were the one who died. He'd find her like that in her office, stunned silent, staring into nothing. He went as far as to speak to Kathleen about it.

 _Grief._

It was everywhere, seeping cold and gray into their lives, numbing them and then suddenly, at the sight of something - a little girl skipping down the sidewalk, a baby on the swings, children holding their parents hands - it set their nerves on fire, white-hot, stealing the air from their lungs. It felt like there _was_ no air anymore, like they were slowly, slowly suffocating.

The silence at home was so deafening, so profound, that he thought he'd gone mute as well as deaf. He opened his mouth, but everything that came out either made her scream or withdraw. He stopped trying. He started blaming.

Blaming her for signing their child out of the hopsital. Blaming her for taking Julia home. Blaming her for everything.

She let him, and that was when he knew they were done, because she didn't care enough to fight. And it felt _so good_ to have someone to blame, to be able to solidly pin the death of his daughter on someone _\- you did this._ It gave him something to do, somewhere to channel his despair.

But he never once thought of what Addison did with it. Now, well, he realises that she keot it to herself, and it broke her. Because the quiet, docile woman she's become os not the woman he loved, the one he married. He knows this, and he knows that he is responsible.

That's his cross to bear, the way hers is that she truly believes she killed her daughter.

It was why Vivian - the woman who was more a mother to Addison than anyone else - suggested the fellowship.

 _They want you_ she said. She told Addison she was destined to be a great surgeon, that this was another opportunity for her to save yet more lives. She'd be helping other families like theirs.

 _If you go_ , he said to Addison, tears threatening his vision, blurring her pale face, _if you go now, we don't have a chance._

They needed to be together, to heal the fault lines caused by the massive shift in their lives. Apart, they'd rip open at the seams.

 _I need to_ Addison said, calm as anything. _I can help other people. They don't have to go through this._

 _But what about us?_ he asked. Exceot he said it in his head, because he could see in her eyes that she was going. Away from him, away from the memories lurking around every corner.

So she left, and he let her go, and he thinks that's when they fell apart for good.

* * *

 ** _To LS, fellow med student/sufferer, you were right about the CF_** ** _._**

 ** _It just seemed fitting to me, considering Addison's vast expertise in the disease along with her OB specialisation. And the whole fetal surgery thing. I mean, she either graduated at ...twenty-two or something, because all those qualifications for a thirty something with a well established reputed practice is fairytale-level unreal._**

 ** _Anyway, LS was right. If I were my professor, I'd give you a chocolate and tell you to read about it and then ask you a million questions in front of as many people as possible._**

 ** _I can't, so I'll just say you're freaking awesome and I can't wait for the day we get to call you Dr. !_**

 ** _And here's the bit where I shamelessly beg for reviews. You know what to do._**


	9. Chapter 9

**_Hi guys! Long time, no see. I know. I've just been crazy busy lately, and story ideas have pretty much deserted me right now...but here's a short lil chapter, not much in the way of advancing the plot but it does give a chunk of backstory I think resonated well with the Jen thing._**

 ** _Anyway, read on._**

* * *

 _Keep going._

His father would say it to him all the time, to all the Shepherd siblings, whether it was math problems or spelling or a ball that just didn't fly right. Keep going. And it always worked.

He said it to him that day too, that last day, a Saturday, spent reading comics in the store, watching his father balance the books, one eye on Amy with her crayons. She was drawing a town, she was going to be the mayor, she said, and they could all live there. His father smiled, said he would love to. He gave Amy a kiss and two pennies, to buy her town with.

 _Keep going_ he said, pushing at Derek, pushing screaming little Amy at him, the bell on the door still tinkling, blood heavy and unmistakable in the air. He looked down at himself in the hospital, later, tears that weren't his soaking his skin, saw the dark handprint on his chest.

It's that moment he wakes to, still does sometimes, in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, shaking as hard as he did that long ago night. That handprint glowing on his shirt, a grisly reminder that he hadn't been enough. Enough to stop those men, enough to save his father.

And he does again tonight, shaking violently enough to clatter his teeth together, the chill night seeping through the windows.

He wasn't enough to save his father. He wasn't enough to save his daughter. He wasn't enough to save Jen.

It's all the same, whether it's a bloody handprint on a little boy's chest or a faceless stack of files on a table. He wasn't good enough, fast enough, for those people. They trusted him. He failed them.

"Derek?"

He jumps, turns to find her hovering uncertainly in the hallway, a blanket draped around her.

She stares at him wordlessly, even as she drapes the blanket over him, her hands falling away quickly, arms cdossed across her chest. "Same as always?"

"Same as always." he says, grateful for the gesture. She steps away, the faint light from the window fading enough to see the blanket now. It's soft yellow wool, the pattern as familiar as the back of his hand; he's seen these all his childhood and beyond, his mother's love woven into wool, wrapped around each of her children and then her grandchildren. Addison had one too, creamy cashmere.

But this one is small, a child's security. He breaths deeply, hoping for the memory of strawberries and chocolate and sunshine, but it smells of dust and neglect. It went to every hospital with them, cheering up the gloomiest of rooms. It spent every night of those precious almost-three years wrapped around Julia, the fringe being chewed and worried and frayed. Addison washed it obsessively, wearing the wool impossibly thin and soft until it wasn't really much protection from cold, and mostly just comforting.

It still is, and he draws it tight around himself, remembering it being dragged along the floor, longer than its owner was tall, being clutched in a small fist, being used to dry tears.

Addison shivers, moving further from the windows where the cold intensifies, and he involuntarily holds out a corner of the blanket.

"I'm fine." she replies. "You need it."

"Addison, you're shivering. Take it."

"I'm not the one having nightmares." she says defensively, rubbing her arms. "You look like hell."

"I haven't exactly been sleeping lately." he says sarcastically. "Why don't you just go back to bed."

"Why don't you?" she demands, kicking off her shoes and folding herself onto the rug. "All I wanted was a few days to myself, and you showed up."

"It's my house too."

"Not since the divorce it isn't." she snaps. "You made me take it, remember?"

He does now. He wanted nothing to do with this house, its rooms full of sadness, their pain overflowing and bubbling and ever-present. All he wanted was to get away, and he left Addison to deal with it alone.

"Why are you awake anyway?" he asks, calling a momentary truce. Mark used to say they existed in perpetual halftime, taking breaks from their bickering to come up for air.

She shrugs in reply, the blanket slipping off one shoulder to reveal silky crimson pajamas, the kind she's always favored in colder weather. He used to tease her she'd slip right off the bed in them, pretend his arm was sliding when he draped it over her body.

They're something he's always associated with her, though, right from med school. Like so many other things, flannel sheets and candles with strange names, espresso and Chinese food, anatomy texts and Christmas carols. Seeing them again drags him back through the years, and he's not sure he likes how good that feels.

He wonders what her life is like in LA. If she really does surf - he can't imagine it - what her house looks like. Her practice, her friends, what she does after work. There was a time when they knew the minutiae of each others days, call times and surgical schedules and after - work plans. Even in Seattle, where the sight of her brought a knot to his stomach, he knew where she was. It felt strange, for months after the divorce, to not even know where she was.

He knows Sam is her neighbor. He's heard that she and Naomi have had some kind of falling-out, that they aren't as close as they used to be. He knows Archer showed up in her kitchen one evening, that he might take a job there, that there's something between Archer and Naomi...God, it's like every thread of his past has come undone and is now tangling together, connections forged where he least expected them to.

But he doesn't know about Addison.

"Jet lag?" he enquires, leaning back against the wall.

"I just...I don't really sleep well." she says, embarrassed. "At the best of times, and in this house..." she trails off, gesturing vaguely. "I don't sleep well."

She does look tired up close. He noticed it when she tumbled off the ambulance into Richard's arms, even more when he hugged her, the feel of her so frighteningly familiar he held in a moment longer than he should have. He never could resist a vulnerable Addison; she was so often perfectly composed, so utterly in control of herself, that when she let her guard down, he couldn't resist comforting her.

He attributed it to the stress of Archer and whatever she'd keft behind in LA, but now Archer is fine and she seems to be delaying her return. And she still looks drained, exhaustion etched in the lines of her face, darkening the delicate skin under her blue eyes.

"So...what do you do at home? When you can't sleep?"

He knows the answer, though. Tire herself out. Drink. Push until she literally collapses. When exams were fast approaching and she was stressed, buzzing on adrenaline, too wound up to sleep, she'd run until she dropped. He never understood it - he could be found passed out on his textbooks at any hour - but she always did it.

And after Julia. He'd wake in the middle of the night to find her side of the bed empty and untouched, and simply roll over and drift off to sleep because he couldn't look her in the eye, and when it got so bad that Kath wrote her a prescription for pills she washed down with wine, he simply stopped coming home at all.

* * *

She should just have stayed on the couch. Curled up small and waited until it was morning, and she could have escaped this house and Derek and her old life and gone back to her sunny safe world.

But she could hear him upstairs, and she knew exactly what was happening, and no one has ever accused her of having self-restraint, so she found herself creeping into the room, offering up the blanket she's found tucked in a dresser drawer.

He gets like this when there's something eating him, his sleep light and troubled, dreams waking him up.

It's always the same one. His father. Blood, screaming, vivid and real and always the same ending. She never knew what had happened until almost the middle of their second year at Columbia, when he finally told her, his voice as coolly clinical as if they were discussing a case study.

He'd woken suddenly, shaking, drenched in sweat; she'd been terrified, begging him to speak to her. She was ...surprised? She doesn't know. But it hurt, seeing him like that. She imagined him, all of seven years old, trying to save his father. She knows he blames himself. She knows he blames himself for Jen.

For Julia, he blames her.

She avoids his question, asking one instead. "You do realise that you couldn't have saved that woman?"

"I pushed her surgery, Addison. Not once, not twice. I nicked her aneurysm. I never do that. I blanked in the OR. I never do that. Who the hell else is responsible?"

And there it is again, the great God complex. He has to play the hero. He has to be the saviour, the knight in shining armor, the prince on the white horse.

"You _tried_ , Derek, you fought for her, you used every ounce of your skill to try and repair her brain, but you _saw_ how much blood she lost, you'd taken out half her brain - if she ever woke up, she wouldn't have been the same woman. She couldn't have been the mother that baby needs, she wouldn't be the same wife-"

"She'd be alive." he says stubbornly. "Alive, and her daughter would be able to meet her someday, and I wouldn't have taken the love of his life from that man."

"And her? What about _her_ , Derek? Do you think she'd want her baby to see her hooked up to machines, for her husband to be dragged down by the burden of caring for her? What kind of a life would it have been, for her to-"

"A life is a life," he snarls. "You don't get to decide that."

"And you do?" she exclaims. "God, Derek. If I'd let you keep going, if you'd taken out the frontal lobe, she'd have bled more than she already had. The baby was in distress. If I hadn't delivered her when I did, you'd have killed that man's wife _and_ his daughter."

"This isn't about just Jen," he says, eyes darkening, glittering in the darkness. "It's about you. You, Addison. You always know what's best, don't you? You make these decisions and you just expect me to _fall in line_ with you-"

"Don't." she says, starting to get up. She doesn't have to sit here and take his abuse anymore, they're not married. She has no obligation. "Don't. You. Dare. Make this about our daughter."

"You took a sick child out of the hospital," he says, his fingers closing around her arms, menacingly close, his voice throbbing in her ears. "You brought her home to die, Addison."

* * *

The color drains from her face, her arm slack within his grip, the fire dying in her eyes, and he knows he's gone too far. Pushed her past a point from which there's no return - or he might have done that years ago - and he may have broken her for good this time.

That night, he watched her sign away their daughter's life. He asked her to stop, that this might be the miracle they were hoping for, that there was no way he'd let this happen.

Keep moving.

He wanted to keep going, pumping Jules full of experiments, borrowing more time. Addison looked at their child's pleading eyes, her tears, and she caved. She signed. She told him he could do whatever he liked - that there was no way she was letting Julia spend her last days in a strange city away from everyone and everything she loved.

He didn't sign.

He wouldn't have let her sign, he tried everything he could to get her to stop.

 _Put it down, Addison_ he said, ignoring the way the doctors stared at him, his daughter's frightened eyes, Addison's set face.

 _Put the pen down._

She didn't listen to him.

He didn't speak to her after that. Not until the memorial. Just a few weeks from the time they left the hospital for the last time, carrying their child, to the time they were scattering her ashes to the wind, not a very long time at all, but for a child who only lived for two more weeks, it was too long.

"I'm not letting you do this to me again." she whispers, regaining control, fighting his hold. "This is what you always do. You blame me. Do you think I _wanted_ her to die? She was miserable, she was scared, she didn't have much time and we both knew it and you wanted her to spend whatever she did have in a hospital watching herself get worse, so I'm sorry if I wanted to make her happy."

In the end, he scrawled his name next to Addison's, if only because Julia begged him to.

 _Please Daddy_ she whimpered, her skin warm even through the plastic isolation gown. _Can we go home?_

Two weeks later, she would stop breathing at three forty eight on an afternoon when it rained so hard they couldn't see out of the windows, when water rose to their ankles in the front yard. He would try to save her, his hands pumping life back into her tiny body, forcing air into her exhausted lungs. Addison would stop him; once again, she would be the reason he wasn't enough.

She never shed a tear. She calmly made the calls, she was the one to tenderly lift their baby from the bed. She made all the arrangements. When everything was done, when their daughter was settling at the bottom of the ocean, she silently packed their things as if nothing had ever happened in the little house by the sea, and that when he spoke to her for the first time in weeks.

 _Are you happy now?_

* * *

 ** _Angst much? I swear I can't write fluff to save myself._**

 ** _Although, time permitting, I may post an Addek Christmas story, thanks to xxLittle Black Dressxx, who reminded me that Christmas is coming up - it's very gray and rainy here and I haven't looked up out of a textbook long enough to notice the date - but I love Christmas and I'll definitely try._**

 ** _So, if you have any ideas...or suggestions...or requests...go ahead and put them in the reviews._** ** _You know. The reviews you sweetly leave me at the end of every chapter. The ones that totally inspire me to wrote the next one faster? Yeah, those reviews._**


	10. Chapter 10

**_Sorry I couldn't update sooner!_**

* * *

The sun rises gloriously through the clouds, golds and reds and pinks filtering through the window, loghting the silence.

He's still sitting aimlessly in front of her, on the wicker glider; she's on the rug, legs curled under her. They don't speak, each of them in their own bubble.

It's like they're trapped on their own private island of grief, in this house, locked in together until they can flee. She sneaks a look at him under her lashes, taking in the pain etched on his features.

That was what startled her the most, in the first weeks after Julia died. The utter absence of pain. Of anything at all, actually. She felt nothing, insulated in a world of her own, drifting. She felt nothing while they cremated her child. While she stood in the wind and scattered handfuls of ashes. While she packed her daughter's things, shipped ththeir lives back to New York. Through it all, she was numb, as if she had just plunged into icy water, perpetually in that brief second before her skin registered the cold, before it set her nerves on fire and crushed the air from her lungs.

But Derek, he felt it all. He cried when they left the hospital, silent, almost invisible tears. He spent the two weeks at home reading to Jules, playing with blocks, painting, he took long showers with the water pounding and his eyes would be red. When she died he was the one who tried to save her; she's the one who prised his hands off their daughter's chest.

And after, when he spent his days at the bottom of a bottle, red eyed and sharp tongued, she went blank and mute. She looked at her husband of nearlyna decade, her partner of far longer, and she felt nothing. Not his pain or his grief or his anger, not when he accused her of being heartless, not when he accused her of being the reason their child was dead.

She looked at other parents more closely now, the fear in their eyes when she spoke to them in that dreaded calm voice, laced with pity like poison. She watched the way their faces cabed inward, collapsed under the weight of their loss, when she broke bad news. She watched the naked outpouring of grief, the noisy sticky messy tears and the clinging need for comfort. Maybe, she thought, they did it to lessen the weight of their guilt.

Guilt at being alive, at being able to breathe and talk and laugh and live while your child, the being who you conceived and carried and gave birth to, rocked and sang and nursed and loved, the person who is half you and half the person you love, is dead. Irretrievably, irrevocably, _gone_.

 _You can help_ _them_ Vivian said to her, watching her watch them. _You understand them. You know what it feels like._ And so she did. She couldn't cry, couldn't mourn, couldn't seem to express her grief the way the rest of them did. So she did what she could. She took the fellowship.

* * *

He looks at her cautiously, but she isn't paying attention, twisting the colorful fringe of the rug around a bare finger.

He can't seem to breathe without the cold heaviness in his chest, the incurable guilt.

Even now, knowing that nothing would have saved Julia, he feels it. The factnthat he cannot do anything about it, that he is helpless against the force of nature that bereaved them, makes him furious.

At least Addison chose to do something. It tooke her away from him; at the moment, it felt like a betrayal, like she was running from the havoc she'd wrought, but now he understands.

He likes to plan, to think, to deliberate. He likes organisation and order and schedules, everything always the same perfect, neat rows of tasks and results. Addiso is a doer. Always has been. She takes everything by the horns, plunges headlong into situations he would soespend hours pondering.

She chose to channelise the grief that he realises now she must have felt into something _good_ , something that could spare others the torment that they faced.

He's watched her operate, of course. Watched her save lives of children and adults like their daughter. He wonders if he's a bad father, for not doing the same.

The case that should have been Addison's last, in Seattle; Bailey's favorite patient, the one she begged Addison to help, he watched that surgery too. From the gallery, never longer than a few minutes. He left and didn't return when it got bad, when they started discussing acidosis and hypothermia and the moniters started beeping. He died.

He looked for her, afterwards. He knew she'd be shaken, like she always seemed to be, dry eyed and stiff after she lost one. He couldn't find her anywhere, and it took nearly an hour to track her down at the inn.

He recalled her standing in front of Meredith and him, at the elevators, her hair pinned up loosely, dressed in black like she was grieving for something - she always wore black those early days in Seattle, he's never asked why - her eyes glittering.

 _Can I join?_ she asked. _Or are you not into threesomes?_

He found her in her room, not an ounce of fight left in her, crying soundlessly. He'd felt...better, although that's almost sadistic. Watching her shake, wracked with pain, it made him feel like she was finally sorry for what she'd done.

Even though, deep down, he'd known she was right. Jules deserved to go happy, in her own home, tucked up in her bed with her parents. He sees that now.

"I don't mean that." he says, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat, swallows from a glass sitting on the end table. It's flat and cold, a faint film of dust floating on the surface that he can taste in his mouth. "What I said earlier, about -"

"How I killed Julia?"

He actually winces at the venom in her voice, at how it's directed not at him, but at herself.

"You didn't."

She eyes him like she expects to be wounded, like she's anticipating pain. "Derek, our marriage ended because you hate me. You hate me for killing our daughter. You've been very clear about that."

"I -" he swallows again. "That was inexcusable. I'm sorry, Addie, but I know you did what was best for her."

In the NICUat Seattle Grace, standing over the tiny narcotic-addicted baby in the incubator, watching her breathe, grasp his wife's finger, each fingernail tinier than the diamond that still glittered on the rings he'd put there, he told her to let go. To not get attached, because it was the right thing to not operate. He thought they should let the baby go in peace.

Addison wanted to fight. Roles reversed, each trying to atone for the mistake the other thought they'd made. That baby lived. He watched the social worker take her away, maybe to a new home. She wore a tiny yellow hat, instead of the regulation pink and blue striped ones. He wanted to ask Addison if she'd given it to her. Did he? He can't remember.

All he remembers is that Addison was supposed to leave, that she was supposed to let that preemie go. But she stayed. For almost a year, when she could have turned on him and gone with Mark, when she could have been happy, she stayed.

And again, when Jen died. Richard - he's known them since they were engaged, he knows the bones of their marriage, the weak spots - called her, but she didn't have to come. She left behind her recuperating brother and her patients and her practice, her whole life, to come drag him out of a mess he was responsible for - and that he blamed her for.

"And I don't hate you," he says honestly. "I don't think I could."

"That's nice to hear." she smiles tiredly. "You don't hate me. Lovely."

"You came." he says, curious. "You didn't have to, but you did. Why?"

* * *

Why did she come?

Well. She's forty two years old, lives alone. She has nothing and no one, except a cat and her cranky, healing brother who has lrobably moved out by now. She's gone through more than four decades of life with no ties, nothing more permanent than friendship and colleagues lingering with her.

Almost two of those four decades were spent with Derek. He's the one who's knows her longest, lived with her longest, longer than even her parents or Archer. He knows the way she likes her coffee in the morning, the exact temperature of her shower, the brand of toothpaste she uses. He knows her inside and out.

He's the longest relationship she has ever had. He's almost all she has left, the only remaining proof that she had a life before all of this.

Why _wouldn't_ she come?

* * *

 ** _Please please please please review!_**


	11. Chapter 11

**_I hate not updating, but sadly real life demands attention._**

* * *

She's used to him not really wanting an answer. For so long, he asked her things for the sake of it, because they were married and there were rings and vows and expectations.

 _How was your day?_

 _Do you need anything?_

 _What's wrong?_

He'd ask, and in the second it took for her to find the words because she was so surprised he'd asked in the first place, the interest would fizzle from his eyes and she swallowed her words.

But now, now he sits there and waits.

 _Why'd you come?_

Where does she start? That first day? Gross Anatomy. Formaldehyde, cold flesh, warm hearts, his eyes searing blue. She knew there was no question; this was it. The day he proposed? It was cold, rosy cheeks and silvery skies, the diamond like ice on her finger but then her skin warmed it and she couldn't feel the difference.

The day they got married? Fluttering silk and lush flowers, a fairytale in white, the scent of scotch and cake when he kissed her. The day Julia was born? Tearing pain, the scent of blood, coppery, his hand firm around hers, her daughter's finger so small in her hand.

These are the milestones of when she fell in love with him, but in reality it was all the time. She fell in love with him all the time. When he told her how he'd lost his father, when he took her home for Christmas, when he opened a door for her, when he wasn't fazed by her parents. She loved the way he slept, the way he looked in the mornings, in the afternoons, at night, in the library, at home. It was constant and ever-present, that love.

She didn't think she would ever have to let it go, and when she did, it left her slowly, leaching the warmth from her body, a slow trickle that left her cold.

Maybe she still has some left, she thinks. Maybe that's why she upended her life and came to him.

He's still watching her, his eyes still.

 _He knows_ , she realises, heat spreading through her cheeks. She just about told him, didn't she?

She was the one who had to put him in a tiny little box in order to get on with her messy life. He probably moved in with his intern the day she left Seattle.

"Thank you." he says, softly. His eyes are closed.

..

He thanked her. He has no idea why, but he did.

After the way he treated her in Seattle - did he really say those things to her? - she had no obligation to him. But she came.

 _Even though I am an adulterous bitch, Derek,_ she said once, so long ago. _Don't you think I might still be the love of your life?_

There was a time when she _was_ the love of his life. There was no question; he knew this was it. They were inseparable weeks after that first lecture. He's never been without her since, and the heady magic, the thrill of those first years when they were still unfamiliar to each other, still learning each other, lingered through the decades of their relationship.

He doesn't know when it faded, but he feels it again, a faint stirring as he looks at her, curled on the worn rug, clutching the tiny blanket that is a keepsake of the only person he loved with that same intensity.

The kind of love that is so ever-present, you don't really think about it, he realises, that's the way he loved Addison. And Julia. Like breathing, he did it unconsciously, for so long that he almost didn't know how to stop.

The way he loves Meredith, he realises, is gratefully. Grateful for the distraction that she was, for the revenge she allowed him to take. She's brilliant and talented and beautiful and young and she has her whole life left to live.

He, on the other hand, has already lived a life Meredith was never a part of. She wasn't woth him those grueling years spent in libraries and lecture halls, later wards and ORs, she wasn't with him when he bought the first house of his life, she isn't the mother of his dead child. She doesn't share the weight of nearly two decades of history.

Addison does. Addison, who asked him for help. She never asks for help. She begged him to save Archer, who he knows is the only member of her family who cares for her unselfishly. Even though he could see it hurt her - he hugged her out of habit, when she came off the ambulance, her hesitant response making him let go sooner than he would have liked. She confessed that she had to...what was it she said? Put him in a box.

The truth is, he hasn't put her in a box because he hasn't been able to. She doesn't fit in any boxes, the way she didn't fit into his trailer. It's hard to make her fot anywhere she doesn't want to; she's always been her own person and that's what attracted him to her. Their ambition matched perfectly, wven though it drove them apart in the later years of their marriage.

"I came because...I knew," she starts heavily. "What you felt like. I feel like that too, whenever I ...lose a patient. Like I failed them - like I wasn't goid enough. The last case I wiked on , beifre I came to Seattle, it was a little girl, the whole family has CF, she contracted a cepacious infection, and her dad-" she breaks off, thinking. "The dad chose to hold her while she died, which means that he has the infection now, and he just...left his little boy, Derek. He left him."

She's dry-eyed, but pensive, staring out as the sun crawls higher over the painted walls. "That's why I came."

He swallows hard, throat sore. "What did you try on the girl?"

"We cultured her and tried all the antibiotics we could, nebulised and intravenous, nothing really worked. It was a protocol one of my colleagues used in his cancer patients."

"Cancer patients." he repeats.

"Cancer patients," she confirms, a small smile working the corner of her mouth. "There's no treatment for cepacious infections, but he wanted to pitch me one anyway, and I let him."

"Arrogant," he observes. "Do I know him?"

"No."

Again, it's strange he doesn't know the people who are in her life. They used to share most friends, hospital acquaintances, colleagues, they traded bits of medical trivia and gossip at the end of the day.

"Speaking of colleagues," she says. "I recall having a job, which I should probably be getting back to."

"What _do_ you do?" he blurts, immediately wishing he hadn't. He still can't get over the image of Addison in private practice. She lived - they both did - for the sweat and blood and thrill of surgery. Even in New York, when they were trying to establish their own practices, she spent half her time at the hospital. As competitive as she is, she's always favored the hierarchical environment of a teaching hospital, the constant feedback, the opportunity to learn as well as teach. He can't picture her in an office, doing consults all day.

"I...deliver babies." she says defensively. "And I do a few surgeries."

"And?" he prompts, amused by the irritation in her voice. She never did like being caught out. "Come on, Addison. Admit it. You're bored stiff."

"I am bored stiff." she agrees. "But don't tell Nae I said that."

"Your brain is rotting."

"It is _not._ " she says indignantly. "I'm very happy with my job."

"Yes, with your two patients a day job." He's deliberately goading her now, enjoying it. She's always so easy to rile up.

"Derek-"

"How's the whole _cooperative medicine_ thing going, Addie?" he laughs. She hates being second-guessed on her clinical decisions - she'll ask for consults and respect advice, but butting in is something she doesn't tolerate. "Is it fun? One big medical game of Jeopardy?"

"You know, that's what Archer called it." she says, surprised.

"Archer lives with you now?" She loves her brother, and her brother loves her, but that's only because they rarely are in the same room. In his experience, that can be a potentially explosive situation.

"God, no." she shudders. "He was...visiting."

"From where?"

"Apparently he was in the Amazon," she rolls her eyes. "Something about prion infections."

"Let's hope he doesn't get one of those next."

"Like anything else would want to live in his parasite ridden brain," she snorts, her eyes suddenly turning serious. "Derek - I don't know how to thank you. For-"

"Saving Archer? You don't have to." he smiles. "I did it for myself. He's a laugh at conferences."

"You mean he's an inappropriate ass."

"Yes."

"You never liked him this much when we were married," she observes.

"Because he didn't like the fact that we were married," he answers. "He's basically required as your older brother to hate me."

"He doesn't hate you. Especially not after what you did for him."

"Addie, I didn't just do it for him. He asked me to do it - for you. He didn't want the surgery. I did it for you."

* * *

 ** _Review, please._**


	12. Chapter 12

_I did it for you_.

She's at a loss for words - when was the last time Derek did something for her? Because she asked him to?

He put his reputation, his record, on the line by attempting a dangerous surgery on a man who has rarely been anything except demeaning to him. For her. Because she asked him to. A novel concept.

Before she can say anything, she's interrupted by the shrill sound of his phone.

She watches him, his face impassive. He has this weird ability, she recalls, to conduct entire phone conversations through grunts and _hmms._ Whenever he'd take a call from the hospital after hours - an increasingly common occurance in the final years of their marriage - she could never read his face. But it was always important, and of course he always left.

"I'll be there." he mutters. "Yeah."

He stands wordlessly, running his hands through already-wild hair.

"You're leaving?" she asks.

"I...it's Stevens." he says. "Izzie Stevens."

.

He doesn't need to ask if she remembers Stevens. Of course she does. In a way, Stevens broke her a little bit too. What Addison did to the girl was unfeeling, maybe even cold, but she did it to make her a better surgeon. But Izzie is Meredith's friend, and all Izzie ever saw was the doctor who deliberately tricked her into thinking she'd killed a baby, the woman who broke her friends heart, the side of Addison he made sure everyone at Seattle Grace saw.

She didn't see the woman who followed her husband across the country, the woman who tried to save her failing marriage, the mother who greived her daughter in silence. He made sure none of them ever saw that side of her; it would have been too easy for them to love her, and that didn't suit his purpose.

"You're leaving." she acknowledges. "You'll need to be there."

"I am," he agrees. "Addison-"

"You should start getting your things." she says quietly, rising from the floor, folding the blanket in precise little movements. "Meredith will need you."

"What about you?" he asks. She's so strong, so flawlessly independent, he can't remember a time either before or during their marriage where she desperately needed him, with a few exceptions. Even on those, she would have gotten through without him - he supposes it's the result of her chilly upbringing, but it made him feel obsolete, like he wasn't really needed.

Meredith makes him feel...needed. She has problems that she's usually willing to share, and she's willing to let him help. Addison, on the other hand...

"What about me?" she echoes faintly, setting down the blanket. "Nothing, I suppose I'll...go home. In a few days."

"Addie."

"What."

"Don't - come with me." he says suddenly, impulsively. "I mean, come with me."

"Derek, you realise I have an actual job." she laughs, shaking her head. Her hair, back to its natural wavy state now that she slept with it wet, falls across her face, hiding her eyes. "I can't come to Seattle."

"They..might need you too. They're freezing embryos, Karev and Stevens, maybe-"

"Derek, I'm not a fertility expert," she smiles. "Stevens and _Karev_?"

"Hey, you never know."

"No, I guess you don't." she says softly, smile fading. "Derek, _go._ "

"Don't stay here alone, Addison."

"I can take care of myself." she huffs.

"I'm aware. You know what I mean." This house, these memories, they're too much. It's like he's been plunged back into the past he's worked so hard to forget without any warning, water closing over his head, filling his lungs and crowding out air. He can't leave her here alone.

He might hate what she did to their marriage, for the decisions she made for them, for the things she kept from him, but before all of that he loved her. She was his first real love, the girl he always knew he'd marry. She was his partner through the most formative, defining years of their lives; they grew and learned together. She was - is - the mother of his child. He owes it to her to make sure she's all right.

It scares him, how much she's changed. She's so different, harder somehow, her edges sharper, blurring her and distorting her until he can't recognise her at times. His Addison was soft under the intimidating mask she wore; she had a light in her eyes that's dimmed now. It's like she doesn't really care anymore, about anything, about herself or what happens to her or what comes next.

"Then go home now." he suggests. "You shouldn't be here all by yourself, it's not-"

"I can _handle it._ " she snaps. "I was home by myself plenty after she died, Derek, and I didn't...slit my wrists, or whatever. It's been years. You don't have to feel obliged, or whatever the hell you're feeling - you can go. I don't need you here to help me, I've put you back in your box and you're staying there this time."

..

There. She said it. Its been burning on the tip of her tongue ever since she came back to Seattle - no, since before she left it. She doesn't need him.

Well, she did need him, to fix Archer. But that's all. He's a brilliant surgeon, and he's the only one she trusted to save the life of the person who is her only tenuous link to family. Saving Archer was the only reason she came to him, nothing else. She regrets opening up to him, regrets letting him see her weak. She isn't.

So she flings words at him, watches them hurt him. She needs to make sure he knows she doesn't need him - because he doesn't need her. He has his Meredith, his friends and colleagues. Somehow, he even got Mark in the divorce, Mark who was just as much her friend as he was Derek's. But her dignity, that's one thing she'd like to keep.

"Addison, you're not an obligation." he replies, wwith astonishing calm. "Come with me now, and I'll help you pack everything later. We'll come back together. I promise-"

" _What_ , Derek?" she demands. "We're not married anymore. I'm not your responsibility, and you're not mine. We lead different lives now, Derek, you have to let me-"

"We have separate lives _now_." he says, his voice rising. "Now, Addison, but this house, its part of the life we had _togethe_ _r._ Our daughter was ours, together. I'd like a say in what happens to this place, and if I know you, you wouldn't deny me that."

And again, he's right. She wouldn't. They may have turned against each other, but they still do and always will have one thing in common - Julia. She's always going to be there in their lives, a small shadow constantly reminding them of what they lost.

"Fine," she relents. "Go. Come back whenever you want. You can keep whatever you want-"

"No, Addie." he snarls. "It's not about these...things. I don't want these things, what I want is...these few hours, here, with you, its the first time I've even said Jules' name since New York. It's the first time I've let myself really remember how much I miss her, because _you're_ the only one who knows how I feel, Addison. No one else can, and it's not their fault. They didn't lose her - we did. I guess what happened with Jen was preventable, but we make mistakes, and I did that day. I would have made a worse mistake if you hadn't been there, Addie. I don't know what we are, other than divorced and messed up, but I was hopinh we could at least be...friends. For Juju. She deserves more than for the two people who loved her most to live the rest of their lives hating each other."

..

He's breathing hard after his monologue, staring at Addison, who looks...stunned. She's silent, almost frozen. Not for long, though.

"Derek, what do you even mean?"

"I mean...I mean I don't know what I feel like."

"You're a freaking brain surgeon, Derek. Figure it out."

"Maybe if I were a shrink, I could." he counters. But he really can't; his mind is a swirling mess. He kissed her, she kissed him back. They've argued, cried, talked in the space of these few hours, and he feels freer than he has in...months. Years, possibly. He can't imagime her alone in this house, mourning thair daughter without him here.

He doesn't want to imagine her going back to LA, where she might find someone else to ease her pain. There was a disturbing dynamic between her and Sam, something in the way she avoided Sam's gaze, and the way Sam looked at her. He didn't like it. Of course he knew Sam wanted her all those years ago; he also knew she would never hurt Naomi like that. When Mark went to LA and came back with the news of his tryst with Addison, it twinged a little harder than he'd like to admit.

He's always put it down to the fact that she was his first real love. He thought she would be his last. They met when they were so young, and he thought they were going to last forever.

But maybe, he thinks, you can love another person and hurt them and be hurt by them and keep right on loving them, because you can't stop. Maybe that's what true love really is; unbreakable, unshakable. Unendable.

Maybe you can find another person who makes you feel better, who eases the pain of being betrayed, and the relief is so great it feels like love, and it fools you into thinking you love the person, he thinks. Maybe you're only supposed to have _one_ great love, and maybe he's already had his.

"But I think I might still love you." he says honestly. "I mean, I don't think I stopped."

* * *

 ** _Reviews make me super duper fast._**


	13. Chapter 13

**_Thanks for all the lovely reviews on the last chapter!_**

* * *

 _Well, so that's where it went._ Her ex husnand says that he (might) still love her, so of course the most logical thing she can come up with is _so that's where it went._

The feeling, that's what she means. That's where all the love went, when they got divorced. She kept hers, in a tatty cardboard box taped shut in the back of her mind; it leaked sometimes but less often lately.

But she wondered what happened to the way Derek felt about her. Because he did, she remembers the days when he used to look at her like he couldn't see anyone else. Did it just vanish? Or did it slow to a trickle, drying up until there was nothing left but she was too late by the time she noticed?

Now she realises - or hopes - that he kept it too. Because really, how can you just stop? All those years, of loving someone, of being with them, of knowing them, how can you just sign a piece of paper and decide to throw it all away?

He's still standing there, looking terrified. Not many people have seen Derek Shepherd look terrified, but she has, and she holds it close because he is rarely that vulnerable.

He looked that way right after Julia was born, in the heartbeat before the nurse brought her to them. He was clenching her hand now instead of the other way around, and he looked absolutely terrified.

But then she was being handed the tiny squirming bundle and she was crying and then Derek was crying and then Jules started crying so they laughed, breathless and disbelieving, and he said _this is everything._

For a while, it was everything. For both of them; they slowed down, they were less ruthless in their pursuit of fellowships and grants and surgeries, surgeries, surgeries, because who wanted to be cooped up in an OR when there was a happy healthy baby waiting at home? They were home before dark and they took weekends and holidays, they walked in parks and went to beaches. They read aloud and sang, they painted and played and they talked about another baby.

But then she started getting sick and there were too many doctors and they were on the other side of things and that awful day, their baby in her lap, the doctor's face set and grim, Derek looking scared like he knew what was coming, they were given the diagnosis. And then it all went so fast from there, and she was gone and he was gone and nothing was ever enough anymore.

He wanted more, more, more; he was never home and she couldn't face her own tiny patients. She couldn't watch other parents go through what she was going through because it already hurt too much. She hated herself because she was jealous of the parents who walked out of the hospital holding healthy babies. So she stayed at home, she curled into herself.

 _You're wasting yourself, Addison_ , Vivian screamed. She expected more. She wanted her to get up, shake it off, act like her heart hadn't completely left this world.

She thrust the fellowship into her hands. She urged her to take it - get away, work, help other people. Use someone else's pain to dull her own. She took it.

Derek hated her for it.

"You don't really mean that." she says to him kindly. She's giving him an out. He doesn't mean it; he has a pretty blonde pseudo-wife and a new life and the career he's wanted since he was a wide-eyed med student slicing up a cadaver. She can't give him anything, except this one small kindness.

"I do, Addie." he says. Like he said so many years ago, like she said too. "I do."

* * *

That felt like a repetition of the vows they took so many years ago, standing in front of a crowd of family and friends, their faces blurred. Addison was all he saw, unspeakably lovely, eyes sparkling blue with tears, her lips curving in a smile. He couldn't believe his luck; he was so stunned he almost missed his vows but Mark was looking right at him, and he remembered.

She forgot, though. She treated their marriage like it meant nothing; she betrayed him in a way so cruel it felt almost calculated. His best friend? It belonged in a trashy novel, the kind she secretly liked to read. For a moment when he threw open the bedroom door he almost laughed. It was a joke, a trick, it wouldn't be the first time they pulled one over on him.

It was real, though, and it _hurt._ It was unequivocally the worst pain he had ever felt. Not when his father died, not when Jules died. Addison's betrayal was, to him, the loss of the last person he had left.

So he left, and she followed him and they tried and then it didn't work out so she left. The morning he found out Addison had moved to LA, he was happy. He was going to move on. The next day was a little strange; he called for a neonatal consult and someone else showed up.

And then the strangest thing happened - he started to miss her. When you see someone day and day out, for nearly two decades, they are part of you. He felt like he was missing a few fingers. He would have something to tell her; something he thought she might find funny, an interesting surgery, a question. But there was no Addison, his finger was bare, and people expected things from him.

Meredith expected things from him. Rightly, of course. She didn't deserve to be kept waiting forever. And he did love her. It just wasn't the same.

He loves Addison in a way that doesn't go away; he cannot forget Addison simply because she was so many firsts.

Because she's been a part of some of the most important things in his life, because she is Julia's mother and they will always share this tragedy. They've seen each other at their best and at their worst, and in between.

Addison is family; he didn't think twice when she called from LA, choked with tears. She apparently didn't think twice before returning to Seattle to deal with her drunk ex-husband.

"You," she says coldly. "Are the single most _infuriating_ person I have had the misfortune to meet."

"I'm sorry." he protests. "I should have said this sooner, or I shouldn't have dtopped saying it in the first place, Addie, but I need you to believe me. I've made mistakes, but I've realised-"

"So now you want to be the good guy again?" she demands. "You want to give your pathetic ex-wife a chance, oh look, how _forgiving_?"

"Can't you give me the benefit of the doubt for once?"

"No. The last time I let you talk me into thinking there was anything left between us? I ended up finding panties in your pocket, remember? So no. Go back home, Derek. Go back to your life."

* * *

The problem with her is that she's such a goddamned idiot. She believed Archer when he told her she was adopted; she believed her father when he said she had to keep a secret. She believed Derek when he said he wanted to give their marriage another try.

And then she ended up finding annoyingly tiny panties tucked lovingly in her husband's pocket.

She bought him that jacket. She wondered at the time if he even remembered that his wife bought him that jacket, while he was putting those panties in his pocket. She remembers being pleased that he took it with him when he left New York; she also remeremembers wondering if this was some _thing_ of Derek's, because she distinctly remembered him pocketing several pairs of her own panties over the years (library, linen closet, once a public bathroom.)

And she remembers being ... relieved. A huge sense of relief washed over her, because she was free. She didn't have to stay there anymore, she didn't have to watch her husband suffer as he tried to make himself love her. She's spent too much of her life waiting that way; first her parents, the kids at the schools where she never fit in, and finally Derek.

She was actually numbed to the point where she was functioning on autopilot by the time she pinned the underwear to the bulletin board. She hopes Meredith wasn't too embarrassed. Did Derek ever find out about that? He would have accused her of being passive-aggressive.

She wisened up, though. She learned how to turn away. She knows how to say no. This time, she's going to do it.

Except it's been so long since he's looked at her like that. Like she's all he sees. His eyes are so clear, crystalline; she could fall right into them. He's looking at her hopefully, hungrily. Like he wants her.

"Addison." he says again, her name rolling off his tongue like it's natural. "Come with me. I promise I'll come back here with you, and then we can ...decide...where we want to go from here."

"Home." she says. "I want to go home."

"I'll take you home," he says earnestly. "If that's what you want. Don't stay here alone."

* * *

Alone. She's right that she was alone a lot after Julia died. What she doesn't know how terrified he was for every minute of every day, imagining her by herself.

She was frozen in her own silence in those days, she was barely recognisable. She lost weight, her eyes dimmed, she was a shadow of the woman he loved. She wandered around lost in her memories, he'd come home to find her crying silently as she stared at of their daughter. He went so far as to ask Kathleen about it, to which Addison responded by hurling a glass at his head.

She came back to him slowly, and he was impatient. His temper was shortened by the fact that it was all Addison's idea; she was the one who decided to stop the treatments. She let go, so what right did she have to fall apart now?

But she got better. She started smiling, she knew what day of the week it was. She went back to work, and he still doesn't know how she did it, but she held herself together around her tiny patients. But those were only the good days.

The bad days were when she had a death in surgery, when she made a terminal diagnosis, when she had to break bad news. Those were the days that sent her into a tailspin, and he would find her with a glass in hand, sharp tongued and bitter, spoiling for a fight just to release her tension. She alternated between rage and depression, and he was constantly on edge.

He worried that he would find her in a pool of blood one day, but that would be too undignified for Addison; she would prefer pills, or some other way he couldn't bring himself to contemplate. He didn't hate her enough to wish her dead. She was all he had left.

And she looks that way now, defeated and depleted and diminished, like she doesn't have the strength to keep moving on, like she's close to simply giving up. She dragged him out of one of the worst depressions he's ever sunk into, and he intends to do the same.

"If you don't go..." he says, licking his lips nervously. "I won't."

* * *

 ** _I promise real progress in the next chapter, which will be up sooner if you...you guessed it. REVIEW!_**


	14. Chapter 14

_**Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the reviews on the last chapter! This story is one my favouritestores to write, and I hope I can keep updating at this speed.**_

* * *

He's never been here with her before. As they descend over Seattle, heavy clouds swallowing them up, he realises he's never made this trip with Addison before.

She's been with him for each move he's made since med school; she decorated his stygian student apartment, she dragged suitcases up four floors in the building they moved to during their intern year. She made her distinctive mark on each home they've ever lived in.

The trailer, that was his own. He took savage pleasure in taking ownership of the land, knowing she wouldn't like it. He chose the spartan trailer precisely because it was the antithesis of Addison. Come to think of it, most of his life in Seattle, in the early days, was based on purging himself of her memory. The clothes, the fishing, the hanging out in bars.

Yet now here they are, her fingers clenched white around the armrests. She's in the window seat - she always wants the window seat - and her profile is familiar. He's been sneaking looks at her forever, wondrously at first, when they were young and he couldn't believe his luck. Then for comfort, when she would be rushing by in a busy hospital corridor; he'd look at her and think _mine_ , and feel better.

Then when she was pregnant, and his constant attention irritated her, he would sneak glances just to make sure she was all right. He watched from galleries, he made excuses and walked the long way around just to reassure himself she was okay.

And then when Julia got sick, it was with apprehension that he looked at her. She was short-tempered and single minded; Jules was all that mattered, and he was worried for both of them because Addison simply stopped realising her own needs. She rarely slept, food was barely a need. She was constantly with their daughter.

And then after Julia died, he looked at her with hatred. He'd look at her curled silently into an armchair and winder how she lived with the knowledge of what she had done. He looked at her sleeping form in bed and wondered how she could be so peaceful. He wondered if she even felt anything at all.

* * *

The first time she came here, to Seattle, she was alone. Alone in her body, the mistake she and Mark had made erased in tears and blood. Alone in a hollow, aching way that she hadn't been since she met Derek. She had been terrified of what she would find; Derek living without her, a concept she couldn't grasp. They had planned their _lives_ together.

And now she has him sitting right beside her, his arm close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating from his skin. She's cold in her thin silk blouse, but she isn't about to move closer. She can feel his eyes on her, hot enough to scorch. He never thinks she knows when he's staring. It used to comfort her, knowing that he cared enough to watch her. Now, it's unsettling.

His hand inches closer until it's on hers, his palm is warm against her chilled skin, just the slightest bit rough. Years of scrubbing, harsh soap, leaving his hands marked like her own. She used to decant her hand lotion into unlabeled glass jars and hide them in his desk drawers to get him to use it. He never said anything about it, but she would smell it on him from time to time.

His hands are so familiar. She's been holding them forever, been held by them. The pale strip of skin where his wedding band used to sit has long ago blended into the rest of his skin, as if nothing were ever there. She lets herself run a finger over the backs of his knuckles, back again, as if she's saying it's okay to do this. To sit here and hold hands like they're still allowed to.

* * *

She doesn't respond when he takes her hand; he takes it as permission. He marvels at the fine turns of bone, so much strength concealed in something so delicate, so much skill and talent that has saved so many lives. Her nails are cut straight across, short; she used to moan that she could never have pretty nails, but even she admitted it was a small price to pay.

She slips her index finger between their palms as they walk across the concourse, and his throat feels thick. Its something she's always done, perhaps unconsciously, but it's always made him feel protective of her.

"Addison -"

"Separate cars." she says, softly, the repeats herself loudly. "I shouldn't be there."

"Where will you go?"

"I'll...wait at the trailer." she says. "Unless you mind?"

"Of course not." he says, reaching for the hand that jerked out of his grasp when she stopped so abruptly.

She crosses both arms firmly over her chest, then shifts her weight so she's leaning away from him. She found time to do something to her hair before they left, and it hangs perfectly straight, ending in a sharp edge brushing her jaw. She smells different, no longer the citrusy fragrance he's always associated with her, and she hasn't put on any makeup - she looks younger, a little lost. Vulnerable.

"Then I'll wait at the trailer." she says firmly.

* * *

 _Easier said than done_ she thinks ruefully as she sinks into the worn little couch in the trailer. It shrieks in protest, but she ignores it.

She insisted on waiting here, she practically forced Derek into a separate cab straight to the hospital. She can't let herself fall for him again.

And it would be so blissfully, sinfully easy to let herself fall again; looking at him like this, relaxed, his eyes sparkling, she's transported back to a time when their greatest worries were next Friday's pharmacology paper and whose room to spend the night at. He smiles at her and all the intervening years melt away; she's twenty- two and in love again. He holds her hand and she's the laugh-crying girl trembling in a white dress and promising him _forever_ ;he says her name only the way he can and she's cradling their newborn daughter, healthy and beautiful and _alive_.

Derek, she concludes, is a one-way trip down memory lane she is not ready for.

And Seattle is one trip she can definitely do without ever again. It's raining, sheeting diwn in gray waves of misery that streak the windows and leave the land outside the trailer marshy and slick. The trees drip and the awning over the deck drips and the cars drip. He that deathtrap jeep, she observes; even Meredith hasn't been able to rid him of it. She only likes that god-awful thing because he can't speed in it, and if it weren't for that fact she'd have sold it the minute he turned up with it.

In fact, she remembers the day he got it. They had just moved into the Hamptons house, it was their first morning there. They spent the entire evening and a good part of the night christening it, and she woke to sunlight streaming over an empty bed the next morning.

She was horrified at first - she thought he was joking. He couldn't be serious. Where had he even _found_ that thing? It was second-hand, sandy damp seats and a pervasive odor of...fish. He was grinning like a proud father, he showed it off.

 _For the kids_ , _Addie!_ he said, and hardly object. That jeep was the sturdy, trustworthy transporter of the gaggle of Shepherd nieces and nephews, perfect for summer trips to the beach and picnics in the park. It stood up to damp swimsuits on the seats, toddlers armed with popsicles, to teenagers learning to drive, the occasional dog, and once a drunk Amy. It's steeped in history, and she regards it with something approaching affection.

She's less benevolent about the trailer. It's cold and the air feels damp. She gets up and goes through the pantry in search of coffee and comes up with a box of muesli, dried fruit, trail mix. Crackers. So he's completely a caveman now, she thinks, shaking her head. Then she remembers he stores his coffee in the freezer, despite her admonitions.

The freezer is also home to a large fish - no idea what kind it is - and she yelps as she reaches for the beans. It's definitely _looking_ at her.

"It's not looking at you." Derek says, laughing as he steps through the dinky little door.

"It has eyes, Derek. Why does it still have eyes. "

"It's pretty fresh." he says mildly. "I bet it would taste great-"

" _Do_ not cook that thing while I'm here, please." she shudders. "And I told you not to freeze the beans."

"I don't use them every day. They're better off frozen."

"What do you mean, you don't use them every day, how do you go to work without coffee?"

"There's coffee in the lounge," he says patiently, putting away his coat. "And I like to work nights. I get more OR time that way."

She digests this while she and determines that there is actually no food in here. She informs him of this, and he laughs.

* * *

Of course she would wrinkle her nose at the bowl of muesli he offered up; he's never known someone who subsists on junk the way Addison does. It doesn't seem to affect her either; he's seen her put away impressive quantities of cheeseburgers and fries and not gain an ounce.

"There's the trout." he suggests, accepting the mug of coffee she hands him. It's heaven, she always used to snipe that he let the coffee sit too long and it turned out bitter. He's missed her coffee, the seemingly complicated pprocess that involves a lot of clanking around and adding precise amounts of milk and sugar - she takes the time to warm up the milk. Never let it be said that Addison Montgomery does things halfway.

"It's staying there." she says firmly. She's sitting at the tiny table, looking like she belongs there. She's changed into an old college t-shirts and sweats, and there's a journal in her lap. She left almost twelve months worth of AJOG here when she left, and he spent months agonising about what to do with them. They've always had separate shelving for their texts and papers and notes; she organises alphabetically but he goes by subject and it drives her crazy.

"Come on, Addie. You like fish. I've seen you eat fish."

"Already dead fish." she corrects. "The kind where I don't have to look at its _eyes_. And skin. And guts. "

"I dealt with the guts already." he rolls his eyes. "And you don't have to touch it at all until it's on a plate. Promise."

"If I see an inch of bowel..." she threatens, but she's smiling. This is easy, it's nothing like the awkwardness he envisioned. They used to take turns cooking in New York, back when they used to have time to eat together anyway. There was a lot of takeout and restaurants, but they liked quiet nights at home sometimes. And if he's honest, it usually just turned into the both of them in the kitchen, bickering good-naturedly about something or the other.

He busies himself in the small kitchen. He can't remember the last time he used it. This trout is a product of a fishing trip Mark took with Lexie, and he didn't know what to do with it - secretly, Mark has always been as squeamish as Addison - he gave it to Derek.

"It smells good," he teases her. "Admit it."

She nods in defeat, but then the smile fades. "Derek...how is she?"

"She's... there are mets in the brain." he says evasively. Stevens and her tragedy are not a shadow he wants hanging over them tonight. Addison was her mentor, he recalls that she took an interest in the girl. "She was a natural," Addison says softly. "She had promise. If she'd wanted it..."

 _If she hadn't hated you_ he thinks automatically. And whose fault was that, but his? Addison is a good teacher, a brilliant surgeon. If he hadn't already colored Seattle Grace's opinion of her, maybe Stevens would have taken the offer. Maybe Addison would have allowed herself to stay.

"I'm operating in a day, maybe two." he says, sliding a plate in front of her. He plucks a beer from the cooler and raises an eyebrow. She nods. "With chemo, radiation, surgery, she has a chance."

He sees her tense at the mention of this treatment. "She's so young. She'll want-"

"I told you, they're freezing embryos."

"Stevens and Karev," she shakes her head. "Will wonders never cease." She takes a bite of trout, blue eyes widening in surprise. "This is good."

"Will wonders never cease." he teases.

"I hope she's going to be all right." she says pensively, setting down her fork. "It's...not fair."

"Nothing's fair." He takes a bit, swallows. "She wants to see you."

"Me."

"You." he gestures to her plate. "Eat."

"Why does she even know I'm here?" Addison asks, pushing back her chair. "Derek, you said no one would know."

"She needs an opinion, Addie. That's all. And your opinion is the best. And the most expensive and sought-after, if I may add."

"Flattery isn't an effective weapon, Derek."

"Works, though." he grins, savoring how easy it is to do this with her, the verbal back-and -forth that has always been their language.

"Are you saying I'm vain?" she says, pretending to be outraged.

"I'm just saying...it's very easy to appeal to your ego."

"Look who's talking."

"I'm not egotistical."

"No - you just have a god complex."

"Take that back," he threatens. It's easy to reach aroumd the small table, his hands an inch from her ribcage. She's ticklish, a fact he discovered to his delight two weeks into their relationship. "Take it back, Addie."

"Never." she snorts, squirming away. "Don't you dare."

"Take it back." he warns, fingers brushing the worn fabric of her shirt. She shrieks with laughter, knocking her head against the window as she tries to get away from his hand. " _Ow._ "

"Let me look." he coaxes, ducking over to her side.

"I'm qualified." she jokes, rubbing her head, then letting him take over.

"I'm just a neurosurgeon, but I'll try my best." he replies, then humors her by checking her pupils, running his fingers over her scalp. Her hair is silky against his skin, catching in the roughness of his fingertips. He breathes in the sweet floral scent of her shampoo, something underneath that's pure Addison and never changes. She stills under his touch, a sigh escaping her lips.

"Derek, why won't you answer your phone, Izzie told me you were back - oh," Meredith says simply, stopping in her tracks by the open door. "Oh."

* * *

 _ **It's strange, but I just realised that most of this is Derek's POV. Anyway, I can't believe we've hit fourteen chapters!**_

 _ **Review, please? It'll help me wrote super duper fast...and I promise I'll start winding this up.**_


	15. Chapter 15

**_I hate to have to wind up this story, but unless I do, I'll reach fifty chapters and a sequel. But you know me...winding up means I'll probably write another ten chapters._**

 ** _Anyway, as always, thank for all the love on the last chapter. It's amazing to see how much you guys are enjoying this, and that makes it more fun for me to write!_**

* * *

The laughter fades quickly from her eyes, and she slides away from him, tucking her short hair neatly behind her ears. The mask goes up so fast he's left standing there with his hands still stretched toward her; he drops them quickly.

Being married for eleven years gave them license to do this - license to laugh, to touch, hold hands. How many times has he kissed her cheek in passing in hospital hallways, rested his hand on her back, on her knee, tucked those very strands of hair behind her ears? It took a while, even after they had moved to Seattle with the memory of her betrayal fresh as a wound in his mind, for him to stop doing that. It was habit, plain and simple. Addison was his habit.

Meredith stands there expressionlessly for a moment, her pale eyes fixed somewhere beyond their heads, and he's seized with a pang of guilt.

"I'll be outside." Meredith says, calm, as if speaking to a small child.

"Go." Addison says softly when the door falls shut behind Meredith. "Don't let her walk away."

.

It takes him a while to spot her in the semidarkness outside the trailer, but he finds her standing quietly at the far corner, hidden in the shadows of the trees, faintly illuminated by the string of lights on the porch. Addison's lights.

"I heard you were back." she says, turning to face him. "That _you_ were back."

"I am."

"And so is Addison. Is her brother..."

"He's doing well." Derek admits, although he has absolutely no idea. He makes a mental note to ask Addison. "I asked her to come."

Meredith let him work through his rage alone, she let him go east because she thougjt it would help. She didn't demand to know where exactly he was going, and what he was doing. She trusted him.

She trusted him, even after the way he treated her the last time he saw her here. His face heats up with shame when he thinks about it; flinging the ring into the dark, shouting at Meredith. Choosing his words to wound, aiming them.

"Why?" she asks simply. "I...I don't want to nag, Derek, but...okay. I'm being honest here, and it...it bugged. It bugged that she hung around you when she was here last week and that's not very nice, because of her dying brother and everything, but ... it bugged. And it bugs that she's here, now, Derek."

"Meredith, she's here because I asked her to be. Izzie should speak to her, Addison is a very good-"

"A very good doctor, I _know_." she says, the slightest hint of desperation to her voice now. Her eyes are luminous in the half-light, holding his. She steps closer, and her hands are soft and light on his face, slender fingers stroking just once over his temples, her lips on his so briefly he barely feels it.

"You told me that once before, remember? When you were holding divorce papers she gave you, but you never signed. You chose her once before, Derek, even though I begged you not to to. So I'm not going there again. You can pick whoever you want. You can choose whoever you want, love whoever you want. All I ask, is that you tell me this time."

* * *

She wakes facing the wall of the trailer. This used to be her side of the bed when she still had a right to this bed. She's pressed uncomfortably close to cool metal, and rolling away is met with resistance. Specifically, warm, solid resistance that feels awfully familiar against her back and has a heavy arm flung over her waist.

"Derek." she says, trying to turn so she can wake him. "Derek."

He makes a snorting noise and turns his face into her neck, stubble scraping her skin and making her wince. " _Derek_."

"Eh." he mumbles, stretching. "Good morning." It takes him a minute to realise what is going on, and then she sees the expression on his face change from relaxed to tense.

He insisted she take the bed after he came back in from his talk with Meredith, and he would take the sofa. She started to apologise - she has no right to be here, she doesn't want to strain whatever relationship he has with Meredith, but he said they would talk in the morning.

And morning has him sleeping so close to her most of their bodies are pressed together, legs tangled, her head on his arm. She tucks her legs underneath herself, crossing her arms as he sits up. A little slower than he used to, and his hair is in hilarious disarray.

"S -sorry." he yawns. "I couldn't sleep on that thing, it's -"

"Lumpy?" she offers. "I told you that years ago."

"You did."

She realises guiltily that he must have been as exhausted as she was; they spent last night without much sleep, then traveled cross-country. Add that to his apparent exile before, and she doubts he's slept much in the last week.

"I slept better than I have in a while," he muses. "You?"

"Me too." she mutters. At home, she falls asleep alone to the sound of waves crashing against the beach, and she wakes alone to the sound of gulls. It's inexpressibly lonely sometimes, yet sometimes it makes her feel as free as a bird, unanchored.

He's staring at her, hair falling into his eyes. She resists the urge to smooth it away. "What?"

"You don't snore." he says inanely.

"No, I don't."

* * *

He feels light. Refreshed. Rested. He could do a marathon of surgeries today, he could take the most boring of consults and it wouldn't ruin his mood. He is definitely in a good mood, he decides, as he walks into the hospital behind Addison, who is apparently dressed for a photoshoot and walking at lightning speed.

"Slow down." he mutters to her. It's a feat of balance that she doesn't fall off those shoes. He thinks she looks intimidating in them, actually, not that he would ever say it to her. And they do make her legs look ... amazing. She's had a thing for them as long as he's known her; he's had his toes stepped on more than his fair share of times, he's watched her accidentally leave a divot in the kitchen floor of the brownstone once - no shoes indoors after that - and he now knows more about footwear than he cares to admit.

"You're too slow." she retorts.

"You're practically running."

"In these shoes? No way."

"I've seen you do more impressive stuff than just run in those." he fires back, pleased at the delicate pink that spreads over her cheekbones.

Richard, who is standing at the back of the elevator, groans.

"What?" Addison asks, curious.

"I'm having deja vu." he replies, unfolding his newspaper and disappearing behind it.

* * *

She always thought of Stevens as someone she could train, take under her wing. Someone who would carry her teaching long after she was gone, who would use it for good. The way Vivian taught her.

But in the end, Izzie was Meredith's friend, and loyalty is a powerful thing, especially when you're interns, when each other is all you have. They stick together - she and Nae and Sam and Derek are a prime example. They have each others backs.

And Alex Karev was the most insolent, arrogant little piece of something unmentionable she ever had the misfortune to teach, although he _did_ show some promise in the NICU.

So she isn't expecting much of a warm welcome from them. She suspects Derek suggested Izzie speak to her.

She knocks once, briskly. A warning; I'm coming in. She feels out of place in her stiff white coat - she never wears one at the practice, and most of her hours at the hospital are spent in scrubs. There's a locker key in her pocket, her name on the lapel, but she still feels like an imposter.

"Dr. Montgomery," Izzie smiles. "You made it."

She feels a sudden rush of emotion, looking at the girl. She reminds her of her own, younger self in so many ways; the raw hunger to succeed, the passion with which she advocates for her patients.

"You're here." Alex beams, although it's tinged with sarcasm. "Great, let me just grab my cup, and go -"

"Alex." Stevens says patiently. He falls silent, although he still seems uncomfortable. "He's being a child."

"And you're talking about _having_ a child." Karev glowers. "You don't even know if you're going to be freaking alive this time next year, and you want a kid."

"Karev." she says, sharply. "If I could have a word with you outside."

Outside, he leads the way to a fire escape. It creaks in the chill wind, and she's shivering in her thin dress. Karev is in wrinkled light blue scrubs, the markings of a scrub cap still on his forehead. He looks as tired as Izzie did, weary, as if her illness weighs him down too.

"I asked her to marry me." he says suddenly, looking out over the parking lot. There are tiny people moving around on the ground, colorful dots weaving between cars. She can hear the faint sound of an ambulance veering into the bay, people shouting and doors slamming.

"That's very...adult." she says carefully. "I'm proud of you, Karev."

"I'm not sure it was the right thing." he says slowly, turning to face her. He speaks like he can't stop the words from tumbling out, and maybe he can't. "I'm not this guy. I'm not the kind of guy that can be a husband and a dad, I -"

He trails off, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"Its easier to talk to a stranger."

"You're not a stranger." he laughs. "Montgomery. I haven't forgotten."

She wishes she could. Looking back now, she realises she used him. She used Alex to hurt Mark before Mark could hurt her. Sixty days with no sex? She was sure Mark would break her heart and their bet in the first week, maybe a pretty nurse, an eager intern.

And then she looked at Alex, and felt...what? The pleasure of having someone new want her, someone who didn't know every bit of her messy past.

"What do you think it would have been like?" he muses. "If I hadn't been a jerk and turned you down."

"I don't think it would have gone anywhere." she answers honestly. "We...wanted different things."

It's true. She was thirty-nine, at the top her career. She wanted stability, someone to settle down with. Maybe a baby. He was a scruffy intern with everything to prove and nothing to lose. Like she said at the time, he could probably fit all his belongings in a milk crate.

"It wouldn't have worked out." she says again. "Attendings and interns, it's just a mess waiting to happen."

"Look at Grey and Shepherd, though." he says, then looks apologetic. "Sorry. You probably don't want to hear about it."

"I'm over it." she says.

"Like hell you are." he snorts. "Grey snitched your husband, and last I checked, you're no Mother Teresa."

"I'm still your superior." she reminds him. "Watch your mouth."

"I will." he smirks cockily. "And I should go, I gotta check on Iz -"

"Hey Alex." she calls after him. "You'll be a great father someday. You're a barbecue and catch kind of guy."

"Thanks, but what the hell's that supposed to mean?" he asks, grinning.

"You'll find out."

* * *

"So how was your day?" he asks lightly. He's been home for a while, waiting for her. He came home to a neatly packed suitcase, every trace of her tucked away. It was comfortingly familiar last night, her things cluttering his bathroom counter, jewelry on the bedside table, perfume, shoes everywhere. The trailer looks emptier without it, although it's been like this for years.

She looks surprised to see him there, turning to let him help her with her coat. She smells faintly of cigarette smoke and something else.

"It was...okay." she muses. "I went to Joe's with Callie and Bailey."

"That's nice." he says, although he wished she could have been home earlier. He doubts he can keep her here much longer; she'll be gone soon, and he doesn't want to squander what little time there is left. "Did you speak to Stevens?"

"Of course I did." she frowns. "That's why I'm here, remember?"

"What did you decide?" he prompts. They used to share interesting cases and surgeries, little tidbits of information, odd medical findings. He's missed it.

"There's a definite genetic mutation." she explains, sitting down in the bed and rummaging through her bag. "All we have to do is identify it and if I selectively fertilise - hey, have you seen my phone?"

He points to the kitchen table, where it's been all day. Like most days. Addison is infamous for never answering her phone when she isn't working. She probably didn't realise she didn't have it all day.

"Thanks." she flashes him a smile, then gets up, suitcase in hand.

"Where are you going?"

"I checked into the Archfield." she says. "I just needed to get my things. Thank you, for everything, but -"

She's leaving. He's not sure how long she intends to stay in Seattle, but she won't be staying with him.

"-don't want to interfere again." she says. "I mean, Mark told me -"

"What did Mark tell you?" he asks, his lips numb.

"You were going to ask her." Addison says, confused. "The night I called you about Archer, you were going to ask Meredith to marry you. Having the sad ex-wife crash at your trailer isn't exactly a great way to set the mood, so...and Derek, _please_ don't use rose petals, they're so cliché."

* * *

The words hurt like crushed glass in her mouth, it makes her dizzy to say them, but she does. She plasters a smile on her carefully made-up face like her mother taught her to. She tells him how to propose to his girlfriend.

She knows Mark helped him the first time too. She remembers wondering if he missed his father then, if he would have liked to have someone to talk to. Derek did all the right things - he asked the Captain first, he bought the ring, he planned everything. It was Christmas Eve, their season, she remembers sitting curled up against Derek before bed - they would go to his mother's house in the morning - thinking that it couldn't get any better than this, when he cleared his throat and sat up.

They always gave each other a present on Christmas Eve - a leftover tradition from when one of them might have to work on Christmas morning. She gave him a watch, and he wore it for years. She used to look at that watch peeking from the sleeve of his lab coat at work and remember that evening.

He gave a her a small box, watched her while she opened it. By the time she had the tape off, he was on his knees and she was crying, he had to unwrap the rest for her. He slipped the ring on her finger, kissed her hard, twirled her around the little living room to a Christmas carol. _You gave me the best present ever_ he whispered into her ear.

She remembers thinking that it _really_ couldn't get better than this.

Now here she is nineteen years later, standing in a trailer, telling her ex-husband how to propose to the woman who stole her husband.

"And you should get the ring fixed," she says, getting the words out fast so she can leave this nightmare. "The stone is loose, and your mother would hate if anything happened to it."

 _Although she apparently hated the thought of giving it to me even more than that._

"And you should talk to her before," she says, hefting the suitcase higher. "Explain where you disappeared to. And why. Julia isn'ta secret, she doesn't deserve to be hidden, Derek, and it's not something you can hide from your fiancé."

There. She's done.

* * *

He can't believe he let her leave. He nodded dumbly and watched her get into her cab and leave. It all happened so fast.

But then he had time to think. About what he did wrong the first time, about whether he's forgiven Addison, about what he wants. What he's known, deep down, that he wants all along.

She looks just as reluctant to let him in as she did the first time, years ago, although she's less drunk.

"I thought you were room service." she quips, stepping back to let him in. She tugs the fluffy white robe tighter around herself, crossing the room to the vast white bed scattered with papers and lab reports, a laptop sitting in the middle of it all. She must have been working.

He sits beside her on the edge of the bed, the coffee in her mug sloshing as the mattress dips beneath his weight. She's watching him, those ocean eyes focused intently, waiting.

 _It's my fault_ he admitted the last time they sat like this.

And it's his fault this time too, for starting this again, for falling in love with her twice.

* * *

 ** _Review, review, review, please! I won't be able to update until next week, but feedback is motivating._**


	16. Chapter 16

He's not used to feeling this way. He's used to being in control, to calling orders, to getting results. Uncertainty confuses him, because it's not something he feels often.

Maybe it's his profession - surgeons are the ultimate control freaks, and for a reason. In the OR, he literally holds lives in his hands. Every movement of his fingers, every decision he makes, every cut, impacts someone else. He's used to being sure, to making sure. He has to be three steps ahead of everything, he has to anticipate what will happen in response to every move he makes.

This hollow, lost feeling, this uncertainty...he doesn't know what to do with it. He has no idea what is coming next. Addison used to say that she liked to be ten steps ahead, to see what was happening. To protect herself. There is none of that here, because he didn't see this coming.

Most people would say he led a charmed life. He is, after all, a world-class surgeon, he loves his job, he had someone who loved him and he thought that he loved her back. Maybe he even did, at one point, but it's not enough. That's another reason he's as good as he is in the OR. He never accepts success. Richard used to say that to accept success is to become stagnant. You can't ever stop working, because maybe there's something better you haven't reached yet.

So he might have had it all, but what if there's more?

* * *

She's having deja vu, sitting here beside Derek in this flat white room. The last time, she was raw, still stinging, vulnerable. She was watching her marriage crumbling into dust, she was watching Derek walk away from her.

This time, she's watching Derek try to build it up again.

He still hasn't said a word since he arrived, but she knows why he's here. He can't ever leave well enough alone. Derek always has to _push_ , he has to see if there's something even better. He's never content, and she supposes it's part of why he's a good doctor.

But right now, she'd like to be left alone. She's still smarting from her refreshed wounds, from having memories that she had painstakingly buried thrust back into her mind. Derek is too much a part of them, it's too hard to forget when he's here, so real and present and alive and breathing and pleading.

Maybe that's why she drifted away from him in New York. His grief was so evident; he grieved openly, he cried, he was angry, where she was numb. She did not feel anything, except a terrible, endless nothing. She barely functioned. She couldn't focus on anything, and eveeything felt dull and somehow drained of life. There was no joy in anything, she was exhausted, and even crying was beyond her. She remembers wondering if it was a pain release, all that crying.

But no matter what she did, she couldn't summon tears. Julia would not have wanted them to cry - their daughter was a happy, carefree child, the kind whose laughter was contagious, who lit up rooms with her smile, generous with hugs and kisses. Derek accused her of being cold, of never having cared.

But it wasn't true, she _did_ care. There was a physical ache, every single day. She longed to hold her baby again, to kiss her head and tell her she would be all right. She wanted the first day of kindergarten, she wanted grade school graduation and dances and birthday parties and she wanted to drive her daughter to college and see her get married and hold her grandchildren someday. She ached for all the lost moments other parents took for granted.

She ached for all the love that she had lost, the bottomless unconditional love her daughter lavished her with since the day she was born. She was unaccustomed to this bounty; she never got much from her parents, and even Derek sometimes felt too good to be true. Julia was the first person in her life who she knew would always, no matter what, be there. And then she was gone.

And Derek was gone too, and she's taken a long, long time to put herself back together, to learn to be alone. She's not fool enough to let him in again, because if he leaves, there will be no healing.

But if he doesn't...she hardly dares to let herself imagine. For all the bitterness that has passed between them, she admits that she loves him. She can't stop loving him; he is too big a part of her for that. She can make herself leave him, if that makes him happy, she can cut him out of her life if that is what he wants. She could move away and find someone else, maybe fall in love too, but it wouldn't ever be the same. It would pale in comparison to the way she feels about Derek.

She cannot, and never has, stopped loving him.

* * *

"Addison." he says finally. They've sat here in silence for nearly ten minutes, each waiting for the other to break the silence. Addison's phone buzzes periodically, there's the sound of soft footsteps in the hall, but for the most part it's quiet enough he can hear her breathing. He knows that sound so well; he fell asleep to it for nearly twenty years.

The first night after he left New York, spent on a lumpy motel bed he knew Addison would never touch, he couldn't sleep. Even after they had stopped going to bed together, he was used to simply having her there, and they usually woke with their legs tangled together. Like last night. He never intended to cross his side of the bed - he put a precautionary pillow there just in case - but he must have, because Addison sleeps like the dead. She never moves, so he must have been the one to curl around her.

And she doesn't snore.

"Mark isn't about to pop out of the bathroom, is he?" he jokes, nervous. Her face is blank, and she turns to him stiffly, eyes wide.

"That...was a terrible joke."

"Sorry." he mutters. "You know what happens when I'm nervous."

"You _talk._ "

"I talk."

"You're nervous?" she smirks, shiftimg so that her legs are curled underneath her on the bed. He misses the view, but he'd better pay attention to her.

"You're a scary person."

"Did you come all the way here to tell me that?"

"No, I came here to tell you we're not done. We're not over, Addison, and you know it too."

She's quiet, assessing him. She looks unsurprised by his outburst; it has been a while since he's been able to outsmart her and catch her off guard.

"What are we?" she asks. "We're divorced, Derek. I don't think there's really any -"

"So what?" he asks, his voice low. " So _what,_ Addison?"

"You didn't want me here." she reminds him. "You said you never wanted to see me again."

"That was a mistake," he says. "I was angry, Addison, I was furious that you would lie to me about that. I loved you. I was angry because I was _hurt_ that our marriage meant so little to you."

"It didn't." she whispers. "I swear, Derek, it just -"

"Happened. I know. I understand that better now, Addie, I know what it feels like when you shouldn't do something but you can't stop, and it just..."

"Happens." she finishes softly.

"Yes. It happened to both of us. We both had affairs, what I did with Meredith was cruel and unfair to you. What you did with Mark was awful for me. We both hurt each other."

"Who's to say we won't do it again?" she whispers. Her eyes are glimmering in the lamplight, shining with tears he knows will not fall.

"Nobody." he answers simply. He takes her hand in his, it's cool and soft and familiar. She doesn't resist. "We might, or we might not. I might still yell and you might still shriek. Sometimes we'll hate each other, sometimes we'll love each other, but we'll never know if we don't try."

"I want to try." she breathes; she doesn't resist when he leans in once, twice, brushing her lips with his. "But we've already tried. Twice."

"Third time's the charm." he whispers, brushing her hair aside, trailing down her neck.

"What if it isn't."

"What if it _is_." he murmurs.

"This is such a stupid argument."

"Exactly." he mumbles, hands sliding into the knot of her sash. "Shut up."

" _You_ shut up."

"Let's both shut up." he suggests.

* * *

 ** _Okay, so very honestly speaking I just made up this whole entire chapter while I was writing it._**

 ** _Now I have a very unpleasant exam to study for, and no idea where to go from here, so it's safe to say I won't be updating for a while._**

 ** _So pleeeease, leave me suggestions or requests in the reviews!_**


	17. Chapter 17

**_I am sorry for not updating this in half a century, but I was kind of stuck...but now I'm partially unstuck, so here's a new chapter!_**

 ** _Thank you, as always, to allllll the amazing readers and reviewers!_**

* * *

Wounds heal, but the worst of them leave scars, tangible reminders of the pain that once was. Scars remind you that you have suffered, but also that you were strong and that you won, that you survived.

What about when you can't see them? When they are invisible, reminders of tumultuous emotions, pain and trauma. No one can see them. No one knows why you hurt, why you are who you are. It's so easy to miss them entirely, to think you know a person when, in fact, there is a whole world of pain behind their eyes that you have never felt.

That's how it's so easy for Derek to live here, with these people, new people, who don't know his past.

They work with him and laugh with him and have a drink after work with him, but they don't know his middle name, or how his father died, or that he had a daughter.

That he used to write almost exclusively with ballpoint pens, or that he doesn't like milk chocolate but is a fiend for dark, that he used to smoke when he was stressed, that he once owned a Mustang and had a little sister. That he once loved Christmas and the color red, that he donates to charities for recovering addicts, that it takes him fifteen minutes in the morning to do his hair and that he likes really bad rock music and detests fast food.

They don't know who he used to be, and therefore it is easy for him to create a new Derek, one who likes hanging out in bars, who kisses strange girls and falls deeply in love with them, who refuses to call his family, who can plaster on a smile and make it all go away. This Derek is nnot the one she loved or married, but he is the man who lives here, and it's strange watching him.

"Addison, what are you still doing here?" Bailey asks, smiling. "Are you coming back?"

"No, I'm just -" she falters. Why is she here, anyway? Her work with Stevens is done. She has a job and a life to return to.

It doesn't matter like last night felt like puzzle pieces falling into place, like everything that had been jarringly out of place had finally returned. It was a slice of _maybe_ , intoxicating and heady and delicious, but better forgotten so she can get on with her actual life. And let Derek get on with his.

"Well, you don't have to think so hard." Bailey frowns. "It's okay, I get you're just visiting. It was nice of you to stay for Izzie," she lowers her voice, eyes darting, before laying a hand on her elbow. "And thank you, for getting Shepherd off his drunk ass. I thought the Chief was gonna fire him for sure."

"He would have come back on his own." she swallows. "He can't stay away."

"Well, he held Torres and Hunt pretty much hostage out there." Bailey laughs. "Could have convinced me otherwise."

* * *

"You're back." Cristina observes. She's standing very still in a dark corner of the viewing room, clutching a folder of scans to her chest, eyeing him intently.

"I am." he says, deciding not to elaborate. He remembers that Yang was relatively neutral towards his relationship with Addison, even though Meredith was her best friend and the rest of the interns had already declared war. He feels no need to explain himself to Yang.

"She waited a long time for you." she says, after a while. "And it took her a lomg time to realise she wanted you, and even longer to get up the courage to ask for you. All she asks is that you be honest with her this time, Dr. Shepherd."

"I'll keep that in mind." he says, but before he can turn around to look at her she's gone in a rustle of fabric and paper.

* * *

She can't remember where the hell they keep specimen cups in here. They're always on the second shelf to the right at the practice in LA, at eye level, because Naomi's patients need them so often. Karev lost his - she's inclined to believe he may have thrown it away in a fit of pique - and now he's asking for a new one. He's too paranoid to go get one himself, so she's on a mission, and failing.

She can see boxes of equipment stacked neatly, IV sets and cotton and gauze and antiseptics and Foleys and masks, a pile of pregnancy tests, suture kits and bedpans and diapers. No cups.

She yanks open a cardboard box at her feet, finding several bottles of fluid, then kicks irritatedly at a stool.

And then she does it again, because she hears a faint rustle. She's not fond of Seattle Grace, but she'll draw the line at accusing them of being infested by rats.

"Dod you get what you need?" Meredith Grey asks, from her perch atop a disused wheelchair. Her pale eyes are rimmed with pink, mascara running in dark trails down her hollow cheeks, tendrils of hair clinging to her damp neck. She looks...terrible.

She's seen Meredith look painfully young and naive and awed and terrified and once, suspiciously pregnant, but never has she seen the woman her husband - ex - loves looking so utterly helpless.

"If you did, can you please leave?" Meredith asks breathily. "This is the quietest closet, you know. No one ever comes here."

"I'm...sorry." she mutters. "Really... I'll leave, I'll - just tell me if you're all right." She might have stolen her husband, but she looks so down in the dumps she can't justify leaving her alone in a room full of sharp objects.

"Oh, I'm great." Meredith laughs bitterly, swiping at one smeared cheek with the sleeve of the light blue shirt she's wearing under her scrub top, looking childlike. She remembers being that young, just a baby really, just starting out. They used to wear something under their scrub tops just so they didn't flash patients every time they bent over them. And as they got older, their careers steadily rising, they didn't need to. She exchanged the uniform of rumpled scrubs for sleek dresses and heels, but she remembers being young enough that she had veey few yesterdays and a whole lot of very scary tomorrows. She knows how it feels.

"Really?" she asks skeptically.

"Really great." Meredith sighs. "You look great. I... don't. You know, it's a lie... they say it's waterproof? The mascara, I mean, but you can't cry in it. Not more than like, three tears, you can't cry buckets in it or you look like a ...a raccoon, like I do."

"Okay." she says hesitantly. She's not sure why the girl is hiding in a supply closet sobbing, but she's pretty sure she's not testing the efficacy of her cosmetics.

"I don't even wear mascara to work." she continues, sniffling. "I stole Izzie's, which is awful, cause she's sick and also that is kinda gross. Also, I'm wearing lipgloss that has been in my locker for about three years now, and I hate the color, and my hair keeps getting stuck in it. My point, Addison, is that you're standing there, looking like...you, and I'm over here looking like me, so that's how I feel. I feel inadequate. And I feel jealous. And I feel insecure and I feel like I'm losing everything and I feel like I might want to kill you. _That's_ how I really feel."

* * *

"I need a week off."

"And I need a vacation, a head of cardio, a drink and possibly an aspirin." Richard jokes.

"Richard."

"Derek. You just spent a week hiding in the woods and then you went gallivanting off with your ex-wife. Do you know how much money it costs me to let you sit idle?"

"I'm not a pack horse." he splutters indignantly.

"No, you're an expensive unicorn." Richard grumbles. "No time off."

"I need to go back east." he replies. "With Addison. There's something she needs my help with."

"Derek, the greatest delusions of your life is that any of your women _need_ you to help them," Richard says testily. "It's part of your god complex. I assure you, Addison will manage by herself."

"It's about our daughter." he says desperately. A low blow, but Richard knows how difficult it was for them, he was there when Julia was born and later diagnosed.

"I'm sorry." Richard glances away. "But -"

"What."

"You're coming back."

He isn't sure if it's a statement or a question.

"Because you have a life _here_ now." Richard say sternly. "You're about to ask Meredith to marry you. I have you in line for Chief, Derek. There's a lot to come back to."

* * *

"I wanted to kill you too." she says seriously, claiming the box next to Meredith, drawing her legs up under her. She's sure she's about as welcome as a leech right now, but she can see Meredith crumbling before her eyes and she isn't _that_ cruel.

"The night I came to the hospital, saw you with Derek." she confesses. "And he was smiling at you, like he used to smile at me, fixing your collar...I swear, in that moment, I could have killed you."

"You almost did." Meredith chokes. "God, I was just falling in love with this perfect, beautiful, kind, wonderful man and then I found out he was married. To you. I almost went a little crazy trying to measure up to you, but he picked you anyway. He always does. It's just that this time I feel like I'm losing him for good."

"Meredith," she laughs. "He has a ring. He's toting it around like a grenade, just waiting for the right time."

"He whacked it into the woods." she says dully. "He called me a lemon."

"He's a jerk when he's drunk."

"No, but that's it." Meredith says emphatically, eyes glittering. "I don't know that about him, I've never seen him that drunk before. I don't know how to talk him down. I don't know what he likes when he's hungover. I don't even know what to say to him, for chrissakes, Addison, he was practically having a nervous breakdown. And then you came. And not only does he come out of hiding for you - something which five people have failed at before you - he flies across the damn country without telling anyone."

"He just needed a break."

"From this," Meredith waves vaguely at the room. "Us, this, his whole life here. He's better than he's been in a long while, Addison. As much as it hurts me to say it, he's better."

"Derek...bottles it in." she says softly. "He doesn't like to talk, so he lets everything pile up until he's breaking down and then he just crumbles. But he always comes back, Meredith. He'll come back."

"But I don't think I want him to." Meredith laughs, tears thickening her voice. "You loved him enough to let him go, remember? You told me to go after him, not to let him get away. You loved him enough to realise what made him happy and even though it must have killed you, you let him go. I love Derek, I do, but -"

Meredith stares at her for a moment, eyes shimmering with tears, her breath jerking in the silence. "He made me happy. I want him to be happy, Addison. Even if it means I don't get to have him. So I swear, if you let him ride off into the ...woods, or whatever, I will kick your perfect ass."

.

"What took you so long?" Alex grouches, grabbing the plastic wrapped cup from her. "I thought you left me here to rot."

"I got...sidetracked." she answers. "And it took me a while to find the thing."

"Well, are you just going to stand here watching?" he demands. "Or do you wanna help?"

"You disgust me." she shudders, reaching for the door. "Please lock it after I leave, I'm sure no one wants to see -"

"Admit it." Alex grins. "You wanted to, once."

"My judgement was severely impaired." she says with dignity. "And I regret it."

"Mhm."

* * *

"She's ready to go."

He jumps a little at the voice, not expecting anyone to find him here in the library. "Sorry?"

It's Meredith, hovering in the doorway, holding a stack of reports. "Izzie, I mean. She's ready. We're waiting on transport to take her up to the OR, and we're ready for you."

"Thank you." he says, searching her face for anything more. "Meredith -"

"Yeah?" She turns around so fast her hair whips her face, eyes eager, and he feels his stomach turn over.

"We need to talk." he says simply. "This isn't fair to you -"

"No." she interrupts. "It isn't fair to Izzie. You need to be a hundred percent in that OR, Derek, you need to a god and you can't do that if you're messed up, and us talking always does that. We're messy. You don't - you _can't_ have this stuff on your mind while you are operating on someone who is very, very close to me. I know we need to talk, but it's going to wait. I don't care what you decide - right now, Derek all I want from you is that you save Izzie."

* * *

 ** _When people leave reviews asking me to update, it makes me feel all warm and happy, knowing that someone is waiting to read the next chapter. It's the best motivation ever...so please please please review, and let me know what you think or want to see!_**


	18. Chapter 18

**_Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!_**

* * *

 _You need to be a god._

He's been - rightly - accused of having a god complex. Of being arrogant and cocky and brash.

The thing is, no one he's ever saved has had a problem with it. Probably because it's the very thing that enabled him to save them in the first place.

In the OR, he is in his element, he is as close to playing god as anyone ever gets; he opens people's skulls for a living, he touches the delicate tissues that contain their memories and personalities and habits and quirks and life itself. A little arrogance is a small price to pay.

But he feels anything but arrogant today; as he turns his hands underneath the cold water, his stomach does flips, knotting itself into patterns he couldn't recreate with a needle. This is not just another patient, this is Izzie Stevens. He knows her, he's taught her and operated with her, he's walked the same halls as her for years, shared a house with her, she is as real to him as any of his sisters.

He can see his senior resident asking for the drill; the man looks over at him, asking for the go-ahead, and he nods. He can't hear the whir from here, but he can imagine it pushing down through two layers of bone, stopping short of the pulsating dura, millimeters from what makes Izzie ... Izzie.

As he's drying his hands he can see his resident take the saw from the scrub nurse, as he's stepping into the chill of the OR he sees it move, side to side, slicing through her skull until the flap is popped off like a bottle cap. He hears the faint clunk of it being deposited into a steel basinthe nurse holds out, and when he steps up to the table, her brain is perfectly exposed to his eyes, glistening pink under the garish lights, tiny vessels streaking the surface. Full of blood, of life, still circulating.

He tries not to look up at the gallery; in retrospect, he should have asked for it to be closed. He can feel eyes punching into his back, can feel their hot breath down his neck.

He looks anyway. He sees Karev with his hands pressed to the glass, sweaty imprints marking the cool surface, O'Malley, Yang, Richard, Bailey. A few residents, a gaggle of nurses. Meredith, leaning against the far wall, staring blankly down into the room.

And there, at the back, alnost hidden, Addison. She's watching him, he can tell, her eyes focused intently. She smiles when she meets his eyes, nods. She used to sit at the very front, before. It was an uspoken rule that if she turned up at one of his surgeries, she got a front row seat without asking, and vice versa. For his first solo surgery, an aneurysm, she scrubbed in and held the suction. She never had to use it.

"It's a beautiful day to save lives." he clears his throat. "Let's go."

* * *

The gallery empties slowly as people trickle away. Life doesn't stop because one of theirs is on the table. Ambulances keep rolling in, babies are born, patients get sick, need surgery, get better or worse, survive or die.

But right now, none of those are her concerns. She is responsible for nothing right now, she can sit her for as long as she wants. The front row is empty now, but she stays back where she is. It feels somehow appropriate, as if moving closer were another right she signed away with their marriage.

The rest of the residents - she has a hard time thinking of them as residents rather than the green interns they were when she left - are still here. They have been given the day off, and Alex is the only one still awake, his forehead leaving a greasy spot on the glass. The rest are dozing, propped up semiconscious in seats.

"The rest of us want to see through the glass, Karev." she calls. He startles, looking at her like he hadn't noticed her before.

"Sorry." he mumbles, settling back. "Do you...do you think it's going well?" He gestures to the OR, where Derek is standing absolutely still, a dissector in hand.

She knows this scene, this spectacle of focus so intense he permits no one to so much as breathe within three feet if him, so complete that he can stand without twitching for hours together while his mind races at the speed of light.

She knows that it only happens when he has hit a dead end, when he has only and one is fatal. And she's no neurosurgeon, but she can surmise what he's trying to decide.

"He's on the last vessel." she explains gently. Karev may be the husband, but he's also a surgeon. Technicalities will soothe him by letting him decide whether to panic or not by himself.

"He isn't sure if it's a feeder. If he cuts, he could either completely obliterate the tumors' blood supply -"

"That's good." Alex says thickly.

"Or it might not be a feeder, and she'll stroke out." she finishes.

"Well, lets hope he isn't doing eeny meeny miny moe down there." Yang mutters, stretching herself awake.

"What _is_ he doing?" O'Malley asks, leaning forward. "He's..."

"He's thinking." Grey says quietly, glancing over at her. She tries not to feel that hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach. Of course Grey knows Derek well enough to know his tics in the OR. She must know about the sixteen towels, too, and his penchant for flinging them two feet away from the bin on the floor, and the fact that he likes his dissectors ordered in decreasing-

"Holy crap." Yang says bluntly. "Is that even sterile?"

She breaks out of her reverie to see someone yank Derek's mask back just in time for him to vomit into a bag.

* * *

"Take a break." his resident urges, irrigating the field. "She'll be fine for five minutes."

"Get me a mask."

The circulating nurse hesitates, looking at the resident.

"Get me a goddamn mask!"

His yelling is slightly impeded by a bottle being thrust in his face, held by a hand as familiar to him as his own. He'd know that little half-crescent mark on the back of her knuckle anywhere, left there by the only cigarette she's smoked in the last thirty years.

"Drink." she orders. "Someone keep irrigating every thirty seconds, and get some cotton over -"

"Are you going to finish the surgery?" he asks, taking a draught. It feels soothing, washing the foul taste from his mouth, and he takes another.

"Do I have to?" she asks, eyebrow arching.

"I'm fine."

"You're dehydrated, frustrated and you...stink." she wrinkles her nose. He knows this not because he can see it behind her mask, but because he knows her voice.

"It's do or die." he says quietly, accepting a towel to dab at his face. "If I cut -"

"She could stroke out, or you could get the tumor." she says. "I know."

"What do I do?" He sees Richard stalk into the gallery, evidently alerted by one of the interns.

"You know what to do."

"Don't do the thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing where you answer my question with my question - never mind. I don't know what to do.

"Yeah, you do." she says, tying his mask. "You're just too nervous to do it. You puked before the intern exam -"

"Okay, that was -" he begins, aware that the whole OR is listening.

"And before your first solo surgery, and before the boards, and if Mark can be trusted, before you asked me to marry you. And all of that turned out really well, so go do what you know you have to."

"All right." he exhales, staring down at Isobel Stevens' brain. "Here we go."

* * *

"Shepherd!" Karev bellows above them. "What's the matter with you?"

Addison looks up, shaking her head. He asked her scrub in and stay. He'll need fast hands, accustomed to delicate work, if it turns out he was wrong about the vessel.

"Get them out." he says quietly.

"Excuse me?" the resident asks.

"Out." he spits. "Empty the gallery, _now_."

"Derek, he's her husband." Addison interjects. "It would be cruel."

"Watching his wife stroke out on the table would be cruel."

"At least he'd know what had happened." she murmurs. "He would know...that there was nothing more to be done, and that you did your best. He wouldn't blame you, if he got to see you had already done everything possible to save her, and if you have to give up he will be able to understand that you did it as a kindness to Izzie. Let him stay, Derek."

* * *

"How is she?"

Meredith jumps slightly, looking over her shoulder at him as he sinks into a chair at the nurses station. "Doing great, actually. She's awake, talking, memory's a bit screwy but she'll come out of it."

They sit in silence for a while, watching Karev brush a tender hand across Stevens' bandaged head, his lips moving soundlessly. Izzie smiles, a perfectly symmetrical smile that makes the knot of tension in his shoulders dissolve a little.

"Thank you." Meredith says abruptly.

"Meredith, you don't have to thank me."

"You were amazing." she replies, still watching Karev and Stevens. "You...walked on water, you were like some kind of magician, you saved her life today, Derek. I want that -" she gestures to the two inside the room. "I do. Maybe I'd even found it for a while, with you, I don't know. But what you did in the OR today, I want to be able to do that. I want to be the one who walks on air and slays dinosaurs, or whatever it is.

"I love you, Derek." she says, holding up a hand to stop him. "I always will, a little bit. I love you enough to kick your ass right now, because you have what you want and you're letting it get away."

"I -"

"Addison whatever -her- middle -name- is Montgomery," she smiles, her eyes glistening with tears. "Derek, you've always loved her. Even when you thought you didn't. Even when she thought she didn't. You love each other, and the only people who can't see that are you, and Addison."

"I don't need an explanation." she says. "Whatever history you two have, if I don't know it by now it means I was never meant to. I -"

"You deserve more." he breaks in, his throat thick. "Meredith, I can't -"

"You can't be with me, I know." she chuckles, tears spilling over. "I know. Our...whatever...is over, and it's sad, but it's partly my fault. I never knew you, not really, not your family or where you come from, or -"

"We had a daughter." he says, looking her in the eye. "Addison and I, you asked me once if it would have been different if we'd had kids, if she still would have cheated. We had a child, Meredith. We were happy, we were perfect, Julia was everything."

"I'm sorry." she says, after it becomes clear he's having trouble continuing.

* * *

This is it, isn't it. Their relationship survived his secret wife. It can't survive his secret daughter.

She says she's sorry, because she hears the past tense and senses the heaviness in his tone. Nothing good can have happened past that point in his story.

"She was diagnosed with CF." he continues, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond her, years behind her, in another life. "She died when she was three. I blamed Addison. Tonight, I finally realised how wrong I was. It would have been different, you were right...if Jules hadn't died, it would be different. I'd still be in New York, she'd be eight years old," He smiles faintly, his hands moving through the air. "I'd take her fishing, and teach her to -"

He trails off, clearing his throat. "I'm sorry. I never told you, I didn't want to burden you."

"It means I never knew you." Meredith breathes. "All these years, Derek, all that pain. You never said a word."

"It hurts worse to remember her." he admits.

"With Addison, you don't have to hide." she says. "She knows what it feels like."

"Meredith-" he begins, reaching for her.

"We are done." she states, tears running freely down her face. "This is done. I can't love someone who I don't know, Derek. You never felt that way about me." She nods to her friends, asleep with their fingers interlinked. "We never had that."

"That's not true."

"If you had loved me, really trusted me, you would have said something in the last five years." she says, wiping her tears. "I don't need to be protected, Derek. I'm a big girl. I can handle things."

"You are." he smiles, squeezing her shoulder. "Our relationship is over."

"It is."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too." she sighs, leaning into the counter. "Me too."

* * *

 ** _Some may not like the conversation at the end, but it was born of my eternal rage that Meredith gave up a promising career in neuro just because Derek couldn't separate his work life and he life. She made adjustments for him all the time, she accepted him even after he turned out to be secretly married, after he was rude to her, she even agress to move to DC with him later in the show._**

 ** _But as we know, she was a kickass surgeon, and man or no man she was excellent at her job. I always thought it would be interesting to see her develop without Derek, since he was such a huge part of her storyline._**

 ** _Anyway, please read and review!_**


	19. Chapter 19

_**Thank you to the rare few who reviewed the last chapter! You are heroes and the reason I feel like finishing this story. To the troll whose guest review said I was ruining MerDer for them, do you not see the bloody great big NOT MERDER in the summary?**_

* * *

She is convinced that when her daughter died, a part of her died too.

It's sort of even true, if you really think about it. She carried Julia inside her own body for nine months.

She used to wonder how the other parents did it, the ones who because permanent fixtures in her NICU. How they put their lives, their hopes and dreams, completely on hold to sit beside an incubator all day watching their child heal in the minutest increments.

When she had Julia, she understood. It's never really about yourself, when you have a child. Every cell of her baby was a part of her - when she was born, it was like a piece of her own heart had left her body, dancing around in the dangerous world, keeping her nerves constantly on edge. She could spend hours on end simply watching her child breathe.

And so, when Julia died, the part of her that was Julia's mother died too. She wasn't the person who went home to a toothless grin and sweet kisses at the end of the day; she became the woman who would willingly take night call and ER shifts just to avoid the deadening silence at home. She wasn't the person whose weekends were filled with sunny parks and swings and fairs, she was the one who spent them alone, missing her husband even when he was right beside her.

Everything changed. She no longer filled grocery carts with fruit and baby food and crackers - their fridge was so bare it looked like no one lived there. She walked the long way around to avoid groups of children. She couldn't look her patient's parents in the eye when she told them their child would be healthy, that they would have a nice normal life, because the jealousy she felt was so acidic, so overpowering, she wanted to scream at them.

She saved babies. She saved parents lives from being scarred by the loss of a child. She had babies _named_ after her. Her entire career was dedicated to saving hopeless cases no one else would touch. If there is a thing such as karma...she had some pretty good stuff going for her.

So why the hell would God - if he existed - choose her daughter?

It must have been something she did - all those lies she fed her own mother? The children she was not able to save? If she didn't deserve her daughter, did she even deserve other, basic happiness?

Her marriage, Derek, their family - it all felt undeserved all of a sudden. She looked at their sympathetic faces, felt their pain, saw their tears, tolerated their embraces and their fumbling attempts to make her feel better - as if that were possible - all the while thinking, _I do not deserve you._

Maybe she was just inherently unlovable. Her own mother never mentioned Julia after the funeral, at which she said _Addison, you need to pull yourself together._

Maybe she was just unlucky. She loved Julia more than life itself - she would have _given_ her life for her daughter. What if something happened to Derek, too?

In the days after Julia died, Derek was a raw wound. He reminded her constantly of what had happened, of the unalterable change in their lives, while all she wanted was for it all to go away.

She made that decision. She signed the paper first. She was the one who tentatively broached the topic with Julia's physician. She saw her daughter getting sicker, picking up fresh infections from the hospital, she saw her rejecting all the treatment they threw at her. She saw how miserable her bright beautiful baby had become - and she just knew. The end was near, and she would not have her child in this soulless hospital when it came.

She should be somewhere she used to be happy.

Derek accused her of giving up on their daughter.

* * *

"Wait!"

She's almost reached the double glass doors, but she stops when she hears his voice. She always does.

When she turns around, he's reminded forcibly of the first time they stood in this lobby together, when she had just arrived to see him with Meredith, to explode back into his life when he had all but managed to clear her from his mind.

She's never quiet. When Addison does something, you can bet that everyone notices.

And here she is, leaving without a word to anyone.

"Where are you going?" he pants.

"Home." She raises a quizzical eyebrow at him, a gesture so _Addison_ that it sends him back through the years, at this same expression on her face a million other times.

"LA?" He still cannot for the life of him believe she lives in LA. The Addison he knew would have turned her nose up at it, and he would have teased her about her lingering snobbery.

She nods.

"I broke things off with Meredith."

"I know."

"How?" She used to be able to read his thoughts, a fact that unnerved him when they were married, but he didn't realise she could listen in on conversations as well.

"I spoke to her, earlier." she says, smiling at his bemused expression. "I was impressed, actually. She doesn't have that whole wide eyed 'ooh, he's a brain surgeon' thing going on anymore."

"No." he agrees. "Although to be fair I don't think you ever did, either."

"Derek, the first time I met you you didn't know the business end of a scalpel." Addison snorts. "Being awed by you was a little hard for me."

This, however harsh, is true. The first time he met Addison, they were dressed in old clothes - a useful tip from their seniors - and safety goggles, peering into dissection manuals and debating what they were actually supposed to do.

He ended up with two other boys and Addison on one cadaver, who according to the tag on his hairy toe had died of a myocardial infarction. He had thick black hair impossibly close to his eyebrows and a round face; he reminded him painfully of his seventh grade math teacher, so they named him Mr. Mulligan.

Four months later when they carved the heart out of his chest, they would find a stenosed valve, but he didn't know that yet. He also didn't know that four months from that day he would have fallen completely and irreversibly in love with the redhead who coolly informed him that his grip was wrong, and proceeded to slice smoothly into their cadaver while all three boys gaped.

The other two were braver and asked her out within two days - he waited a few weeks until he could string three words together in her presence without sounding like an idiot. And the rest, they say, is history.

So much history, in fact, that some of it blurs together in his memory, a comfortable haze of laughter and warmth. Enough history that he knows he cannot walk away from it.

What she said to him in the OR today, when he wanted Karev to leave - it reminded him of the way he treated her after Julia died. He was so angry that she wven dared to think of taking their daughter home, even when he could see nothing was working, that Jules was still sick and just getting more miserable by the day, that he lashed out at Addison. He was angry at himself, for not being able to do more, at the doctors who didn't have answers, at the random collision of genes that was killing his child, at the world, at god, but none of those things were things he could _be_ angry at.

So he took it out on Addison.

He's known for a long time now that Addison deals with emotions by ignoring them, likely because of her mother, but he still raged at her. He accused her of giving up on Julia. Of never having wanted her in the first place. He was blind to everything except his pain.

He didn't see her fighting to get their daughter into clinical trials, he didn't see her giving up her blossoming career to read stories and soothe nightmares, he didn't see her crying when she thougjt he was asleep. He _saw_ , but he didn't care. All he cared about was that their daughter was dying and Addison had signed a piece of paper saying they were to take their child home. To die.

And when it finally happened, when he tried to save her and Addison made him stop, he hated her. He couldn't hate Jules for dying - so he hated Addison for letting her. He hated Addison because she refused to grieve the way he did. He hated her because she didn't need him the way he needed her. He hated her because she was the one who knew what Julia needed was to be at home and happy. He hated her because she didn't care that he did.

She didn't care about much of anything. He'd go to work and find her sitting in the office at home the exact same way she had been when he left in the morning, staring at nothing. She smiled vacantly when his sisters and his mother fussed over her. She turned expressionless when he mentioned Julia. She screamed when he tried to clear away the ghostly remnants of her life scattered through their home.

And then that goddamn fellowship. She was a frail, hollow-eyed husk of her former self, and she wanted to hurl herself headlong into the very disease that claimed their child. He didn't think she could handle it, seeimg those sick kids, their scared families - it was too soon, he said, too close to home.

She said he was selfish. And then she was gone, and those two years were the longest time they had been apart since they were twenty one. She came back, but not really.

He became accustomed to being without her. He learned to sleep alone in their vast bed. He finally packed away the reminders of Julia's life. He worked longer hours than he had as a resident. He flirted harmlessly at the hospital. He went on weekends to see Addison, but she always seemed busy and after a while the visits tapered off.

And now she's leaving again.

"Stay." he says. "Please."

"Why?" she asks, curious. "Derek - you broke up with Meredith, but you'll be back together. You can't rebound with the ex wife."

"Wh - I'm not rebounding."

She's silent, giving him the eyebrow.

"I can't rebound from the rebound," he reasons. "Not when you were the reason I needed a rebound."

"That made zero sense to me."

"I'm not rebounding." he summarises. "I'm correcting a mistake. Addison, I'm asking you to stay because I need you. I didn't realise that in New York, and I didn't realise it before we got divorced, but I do now."

"Derek -"

"I know I said I didn't want to see you again." he continues. "I was angry, and took it out on you. I'm sorry, but -"

"I can't make this mistake twice." she says quietly. "You asked me to stay before, Derek, the first time I came here. And look what happened."

"I made a mistake in New York." he admits. "I was absent. What you did...it hurt, but I realise I was a factor in it. I made a mistake by leaving without giving us a chance. I don't want to make that mistake twice."

"Give me three reasons why I should listen to you." she says.

"Well...one, because I need you. Two, because I love you. Three -"

"What's the third?" she breathes.

"I don't know." he grumbles, leaning in to kiss her. She lets him, closing her eyes. "I just know that I've always loved you."

* * *

 _ **I think an epilogue, and we're done. I'd ask nicely for a review but it doesn't work, so I'll just hope you liked the chapter and leave it at that.**_


	20. Chapter 20

_**..**_

 _ **Was it two wills**_

 _ **One mirror holding us dearer now**_

 _ **..**_

* * *

Grief, he thinks, isn't a thing to be measured. Maybe it's something that comes and goes, a little more some days, some days a little less.

Maybe someday it fades enough so it's a sweet sting, somewhere in the back of his mind. A small empty space in his heart, leaving room for more.

Maybe it just needed time.

* * *

It took her a long time for her to realise what it felt like to be loved. To be loved, deeply, leaves a mark on you. It protects you.

To love someone else that deeply...it makes you vulnerable.

To lose someone you love with your whole being can be enough to rip you limb from limb, to leave you bleeding until you're too drained for your heart to keep beating.

But when you heal, you're stronger than before.

* * *

Time is endless now, stretching out before them. They have all the time in the world. No one can take it from them.

They have all the time to walk slowly up this narrow sandy path, all the time in the world to stop and admire a pebble, a cracked shell, a flower, a slug that makes Addison shudder.

They have all the time to watch their son run through the park, weaving in the way particular to small boys and excited puppies, everywhere at once and nowhere in particular.

"Look." he says delightedly, thrusting a leaf in his mother's face. "Blue!"

"It's red, darling." she smiles, kissing his button nose. "Can you say red?"

"Blue!" he cries again, already off in search of another treasure.

"He's getting so big," Addison sighs, watching their son navigate the path with ease. A few months ago, he would have been in his bottom every few steps, chin wobbling. Already, he's getting away.

"He's still little." he soothes. "He'll be little for ..."

"Ten more years?" Addison smiles ruefully. "Then he'll be making his own decisions -"

"- talking back to us." he shudders.

"Playing really bad music." she offers.

"Nah, he'll have good taste."

"Derek -"

"Do not mention the Clash."

"I don't have to, you did it yourself." Addison smirks.

"Daddy!"

They look ahead to see their son beckoning imperiously from the end of the path, shoes scuffing impatiently.

"Walk _slow_ ," he complains. "Don't walk slow."

"Such a New Yorker." Addison snickers.

"Wait till he actually has to do his own walking in the city." he replies, matching his wife's lengthening stride.

"What's the matter, Chris?" Addison asks, scooping him up and turning him sideways to make him giggle. "You found another yucky bug?"

"No bug," he says, chortling. "Not for Mommy."

"That's right, Mommy doesn't like you putting bugs in your pockets." he agrees.

"Or your shoes." Addison chimes in.

"Or your mouth."

"Down." he pleads, clearly already done with the lecture. He zooms away the second Addison puts him down, and he can feel his knees complaining as he heads up the slight incline.

"Feeling old?" Addison whispers.

"Not me."

* * *

It look her longer than it takes most people to get here. Most women her age have children starting high school; she stole her son out of preschool for this trip.

She wouldn't have it any other way. She has a husband she loves, a beautiful son, a flourishing career. Five years ago, she had thought she was alone.

Turns out, what she wanted was in front of her all along.

She comes to the end of the path. It's quieter here, the shrieks of other children on the play structures behind them fading out. She can hear the waves below, and feels a soft pang in her heart.

 _Julia._

She would have been such a good big sister.

"Not so close." Derek swings Christopher away from the fence, tucking him under his arm like a football.

"Swim?" Chris asks hopefully, pointing at the water.

"Maybe when we go home." she suggests. "Not here."

"Jules is here?"

"That's right." Derek says, when she can't answer.

He knows about his sister; he's seen her pictures, they pray for her every night before bed. He drew a picture of her as an angel at his school.

But he's never made the connection between his sister and this place before, not by himself.

"Hiya, Jules!" he yells into the breeze, cupping his hands over reddening cheeks. "Iss my birt-day!"

"Tell her how old you are." Derek prompts.

"Fo." he answers, sticking up five tiny fingers. "All grown up."

Four - already a year older than his sister would ever be. He would grow up, and Julia would always be little.

"Mommy's sad." he says cautiously, patting her wet cheek. "Kiss it better?"

"Yes, please." she says, leaning close for a sloppy peck. "Thank you."

"I make it all better," he declares. "I'm a _doc_ \- ta."

She laughs despite herself, then Derek chuckles, and soon they're all laughing - Chris's pealing laughter is nostly because he's pleased at himself for making them laugh, but hers is from relief. From gratitude, that she got a second chance to get what she wanted.

Not everyone does.

And, as they sit all crammed together on the tiny blue bench - ' _Blue_?' Chris asks - looking out over the ocean, she thinks that this time around, it's pretty damn perfect

* * *

 _ **The End**_

* * *

 _ **And that's it. I haven't been updating at all recently, but this story was my favorite and finishing it is something I always meant to do.**_

 _ **Although it does make me a bit sad.**_

 _ **So please, review this fic one last time and tell me what you thought about the whole thing!**_


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